I Am Also Thy Brother
by Lightning on the Wave
Summary: AU, part 7 of Sacrifices. In the wake of death and disaster, Harry struggles to be everything he is: leader, lover, son, and brother. Yet what will survive the War diminishes every day he does not find and destroy a Horcrux.
1. Last and Darkest

**Title**I Am Also Thy Brother

**Disclaimer**: All recognizable characters, settings, objects, and spells in this story belong to J. K. Rowling. I am making no money off this story, and am doing it solely for fun.

**Summary: **AU, part 7 of Sacrifices. In the wake of death and disaster, Harry struggles to be everything he is: leader, lover, son, brother. Yet what will survive the war diminishes every day he does not find and destroy a Horcrux.

**Genre: **Tragedy/Horror.

**Warnings: Character deaths **(multiple, and most of them major characters), **gore, violence, torture, rape, **slash _and_ het _and_ saffic (femmeslash) in varying degrees of explicitness, language, references to past child abuse, **emotional trauma**.

**Notes: **Welcome to the seventh, and last, story in the Sacrifices Arc, the sequel to A Song In Time of Revolution. This is by far the darkest, and there are long stretches absent of any sort of fluff, with lots of scenes that may be triggering for people. And lots and lots of characters don't survive this one. Feel free to stop reading at any time.

The titles of this story and a good many of its chapters come from Swinburne's poem "Hymn to Proserpine," one of the most glorious and tragic poems ever written (in my opinion, of course).

And yes, I'm starting this a few days early. Couldn't be helped. If you're interested in babble as to why, the link to my LJ is in my profile.

**First chapter warning: Cliffhanger**

**I Am Also Thy Brother**

**Chapter One: Last and Darkest**

Harry woke in the night to the sound of sobbing.

He sat up slowly, fumbling at his glasses, his sleep-fogged mind trying to understand how someone else had arrived in his and Draco's bedroom. The tug of a heavy arm around his midriff proved that Draco was still asleep, and shouldn't have been standing in the darkness beside his bed and crying. Neither did he stir when Harry moved, though, which he thought unusual, until he remembered that Draco had gone to sleep wearing the Dreamer's Crown. He would be caught up in his lucid dreams and the choices he made in them until morning.

"_Lumos_," Harry whispered, holding up his left hand. Pale yellow light sparked through the darkness, revealing one of the last faces he would ever have expected.

"Professor Trelawney?" he asked, staring.

She stared back at him, with the expression of a wrecked woman. Her hair hung loose in frizzing curls around her face, and her eyes showed the effects of too many sleepless nights and too many cups of sherry. Remembering what had happened last night—in fact, he believed he'd be thinking of it on his deathbed—Harry shifted cautiously backwards. He had reason to fear people not sleeping well as he thought few other wizards in the world did.

"I tried to resist it," Professor Trelawney whispered, and her head shook as though it were a balloon tied to the end of a stick. "I tried. But it brought me here. It won't let me leave the room until I do what it wants." She folded her arms around her torso and bowed her head, while Harry looked in several different directions, trying to see the magic she meant. "It wants to be said," Trelawney whispered.

The splinters of ice that Harry had felt lodged in his heart for a day now seemed to extend outward.

"A prophecy," he said, and his own voice sounded hollow. _Well. I knew there was one coming. I just didn't know it was now._

"Yes." Trelawney stared at him with wrecked eyes again, glittering behind her glasses. "I have to be a Seer and know what I said now, for only the second time in my life. Will you listen?"

The pain in her face testified to how long she'd tried to resist this. Harry didn't want to know the prophecy, but there was too much pain in the world that he could not ease right now, and this suffering, he could. Besides, he _had_ to know it. It might, if he could figure it out, provide valuable clues to how the future war with Voldemort went.

It was strange, when he thought back on it later, that he hadn't ever dreamed the prophecy wouldn't concern the war with Voldemort. Of course it had to. That was the central reality of his life right now.

He gripped Trelawney's hand and nodded to her, once.

She gave a little whimper of relief and spoke quietly, shakily. Harry heard the words anyway. He thought she could have whispered them in a catacomb and he would have heard them. The prophecy wanted to be said, but even more than that, Harry thought, it wanted to be heard. And the thunder that filled the room as the professor spoke proved that this was a true prophecy, the fourth she'd made in her life, the last and the darkest.

"_At the end of all things,_

_Prophecies run out._

_It is on humans to take wings_

_And makes themselves human past the doubt._

"_The first thing is the smallest thing,_

_But the center of many hearts still._

_But, oh, savior, watch for the sting,_

_For the smallest things may kill._

"_The second, no one can afford_

_To ignore the curse that seems a wall._

_But that curse is true, and from the Lord, _

_And its only destruction is a fall._

"_The third, amid the shining roses_,

_Waits for hearts to inevitably harden._

_But there will be others' important choices_

_Within night's poisoned garden._

"_The fourth, in the old hatred curled_

_Has found its way to move and end._

_Beware, for when you most wish to hide from the world,_

_You'll be taken by one who's a friend._

"_So much pain running without a halter,_

_More than is traded every day in gold._

_Yet remember that even prophecies falter,_

_And it is up to human hands to hold_

"_And cling together at the end of all things._

_Prophecies will, inevitably, run out._

_It is on humans to take up wings,_

_And makes themselves human past the doubt."_

Trelawney's head sagged back, and her mouth fell open and slack, as though she had sung something wonderful. Harry swallowed, and his skin prickled as he felt eyes on him. He glanced to the side.

A sleek black dog sat in the corner of the room, wreathed with what looked like a golden-green bridle. Harry had seen a similar vision once before: in the Department of Mysteries, when the Stone tried to turn time against him. The dog's eyes were rich, deep, expectant—the eyes of Lady Death, the eyes of the Grim that waited on Regulus Black's arm in place of the Dark Mark and had enabled him to resist the call from Voldemort.

The dog tilted back her head and gave voice to a soundless howl. At the same instant, the thunder stopped rolling around them, and Trelawney vanished from the room. The dog watched Harry a moment more, then collapsed into shadow and faded, too. Harry was left alone in the company of his own rushing breath and a deeply sleeping Draco.

_No. Not just those. I still have my mind._

And Harry knew that he had to make a decision. Now, when he would be almost alone except for the sworn companion he had to take with him, was the best time to make it.

He scribbled a note for Draco and left it on the table beside the bed. Then he slipped out into the Slytherin common room. He'd intended to cross to the seventh-year boys' room and wake Owen Rosier-Henlin up, but he paused when he saw Owen sitting in the middle of the common room. He rose to his feet when he saw Harry and gave him a soft smile.

"Couldn't sleep," he said, by way of explanation. "And knew you would want company." He touched his left arm, which bore the lightning bolt shape of his swearing to Harry. "Upwards?"

Harry nodded. "The Astronomy Tower."

Owen looked startled for a moment. "I thought the Headmistress had sealed that off."

_She very well might have, _Harry thought distractedly. He knew McGonagall had been awake since early that morning, firmly telling the other professors that Hogwarts _would_ stay open until at least the end of the term, and that she trusted Severus Snape to behave himself until she was up and walking around the hospital wing. But Harry hadn't been aware of whatever other decrees she might have made. The day had been—long, telling the Bulstrodes, Narcissa, Draco, and the Weasleys of what he had seen, and doing what he could to comfort them against their losses to death or Voldemort, and also doing what he could to comfort Snape.

"As close as we can get, then," he said, and set off towards the common room door. "I need to feel fresh air on my face, and I don't think that I dare go outside the wards right now."

He could feel Owen's startled, thoughtful glance on his shoulder blades. It wasn't long before that Harry would have resented having a guardian, resented the idea that he shouldn't leave the wards, and sneaked off on his own just to prove that he could. Owen would be wondering what had changed him.

_Last night did, _Harry answered, though not aloud. _Voldemort can reach most anywhere, and not many other people than me have a hope of standing up to him. I _have _to think of my own safety more than I have. I can't go flying on my broom to think, and the Astronomy Tower is still well within the wards._

_There are decisions I need to make._

SSSSSSSSSSS

It had begun with a flare in the Floo connection, which he kept open night and day now, and someone he hadn't recognized at first shouting, "Sir! _Sir!_ Elder Juniper! Minister Scrimgeour is dead!"

It had turned out to be one of the Aurors who had started moving closer to him after Scrimgeour's mindless debacle with Cupressus Apollonis. Accusing a prominent Light wizard of child abuse when nothing of the sort had been happening would, of course, lose the Minister followers. He hadn't seemed to care about that before he made his move, though.

Struggling into his dressing gown, Erasmus Juniper demanded the story over again, and received it. The Minister's still body. The death of Percy Weasley, his closest companion. How the Aurors standing outside the door had heard nothing, but had gone in to find three bodies, including that of the young woman who had helped the Minister against the Dark Lord Falco Parkinson, sprawled on the floor. The broken wall, and the hovering Dark Mark.

The Thorn Bitch's work. You-Know-Who's work.

But Erasmus knew a different name for it, and when he'd snapped an order to the Auror to back out of the Floo connection so he could come through, it was humming in his head.

The _Dark's_ work.

Times had changed. This was the full-blown beginning of the Second War, not that pitiful contest between Lords two years ago. The magical world needed to remember the lessons of the First War, and it needed a strong leader who would work for the _Light_, which was the Dark's opponent.

Erasmus Juniper knew he was that leader.

He moved fast, because it was necessary. He listened to the Aurors' stories. He viewed the bodies for himself, wincing at the destruction of Percy Weasley's, and ordered the victims' families to be notified. He stooped over Rufus, who had died looking oddly peaceful, and made a private vow that none of the others heard.

"You left them in my care. I'm going to take care of them, I promise. As one Light-sworn wizard to another, I promise." _And if I take better care of them than you did, well, that is only to be expected. The world has just become simpler than it was when you were Minister. Whilst you had to move cautiously, I may move openly, and I will not use or bargain with the Dark as you did._

He had ordered the Wizengamot to be gathered. Technically, he didn't have the authority to do so, but the people around him cried out for _some_ kind of authority, perfectly legitimate or not. They hurried to do as he had commanded, and the news of the Minister's death spread throughout the Ministry. Erasmus passed many people crying as he made his way to Courtroom Ten. And why not? Rufus had been disliked, but almost always for political reasons. As a _person_, people had liked him.

Erasmus shook his head. It was that likeability that had killed him. Despite the third body on the floor in his office and its lack of a Dark Mark, he was sure that the young woman who called herself the Liberator had provided the key to Rufus's destruction. Perhaps she had been a witting pawn, perhaps not, but somehow she had let Indigena Yaxley into the Ministry. What Britain needed now was a Minister who would never allow such a thing.

There were other things he would never allow, either. During the First War, the Aurors had been briefly granted permission to use the Unforgivables legally, which had led to endless torture of innocents when the Aurors had a grudge against them or were drunk on power. Erasmus would not order such measures, ever. He would do what was right, not what was expedient.

Courtroom Ten slowly filled. Most of the eyes Erasmus looked into shimmered with tears, or terror, or both. There were a few exceptions, like Griselda Marchbanks, but not many. They had all heard the news now; those who might not have heard it before they arrived knew it the moment they stepped into the courtroom. Their world was leaderless, sent reeling. Something had to be done.

Erasmus would be the man to do it—not because he was politically ambitious, but because he was the best wizard for the position, and he knew it.

"Wizards and witches of the Wizengamot," he said, drawing their attention immediately, "what you have heard is true. Minister Rufus Scrimgeour has been assassinated, killed by the hand of Indigena Yaxley, the Thorn Bitch working in You-Know-Who's service. She entered the Ministry, by means as yet unknown, and slew everyone in his office, then broke free again."

Loud murmurs and complaints made it impossible to continue for a moment. Erasmus waited, one arm curled around his hip. He was wearing, under his formal cloak, the robe with the depiction of the firebird on it, the oldest symbol of organized Light. The stitched talon curved around his hip. He thought he could feel gathering warmth from it, as though the old Light approved of his measures.

"I grieve for the death of Rufus, as all of you do," he went on, lifting his voice. "But there is no time to spare. We _must_ act, to prevent panic and its attendant plagues from sweeping the whole of Britain. This is a war against the Dark, and the Light _must_ rise."

"I suppose you have a plan for that?" Griselda asked, her voice creaky and soft but able to make itself heard nonetheless, her eyes on him.

Erasmus nodded to her. She was one of the few opponents who might be able to convince the others to elect her Acting Minister, if he allowed her time. He did not intend to allow her that time. Griselda would be a disaster, through no fault of her own. She had obligations to the goblins that would make her hesitant to do some of what must be done for fear she would be held personally accountable for any injuries to them. And she was too close to the _vates._

Erasmus's mouth tightened as he thought of the _vates_. More news was coming in, though he had not heard all of it before he summoned the Wizengamot, talking about an attack at Hogwarts. Nothing was said of the _vates_ being dead, but Erasmus was sure that he and his Death Eaters were tied to this somehow.

_Well, no matter. He will yield, or he will be counted as a tool of Voldemort. This is no time for personal disputes. He must work with the Ministry. We cannot afford a civil war, or a war on two fronts._

"I do," said Erasmus. "I have built an alliance with several prominent Light wizards, and where they go, their families and allies will follow. Their members include Aurora Whitestag—whom I think most of you might have some reason to remember—Cupressus Apollonis, Terin Griffinsnest, and others." He took the prepared scroll out of his robe pocket. "Here is the list of names. I will pass it around the courtroom so that others can see it."

"And what is your proposal, Juniper?" Griselda asked, with that relentless, tiresome patience.

"That the Wizengamot appoint me Acting Minister, for now," said Erasmus calmly. "That the alliance of Light wizards be allowed some power in the Ministry, enough to organize the Aurors and other Departments against this threat. That we examine the recent decrees and promises that Rufus made and see how many of them are necessary now, and how much it will cost us to keep them if they are determined to be so. That the Ministry shift to a war footing _immediately_. That some of those we know to be high risks be brought in for questioning." He stood, eyes locked on Griselda's, waiting for her to challenge some part of a proposal built all on calm reasoning.

Griselda opened her mouth, but another Wizengamot member, Linda Hooplan, overwhelmed her. "I agree," she said, fear falling from her mouth, her eyes. "We must do something to counteract the Dark, and I agree."

Others began to voice their agreement. Erasmus smiled slightly. He had known it would be simple, though he had anticipated more of a battle. In times of fear, groups of people would let their instincts guide them, and follow the one who seemed most prepared. Since he _was_ the one who was most prepared, he had not had to work very hard for the appearance of it, either. There would be a few who opposed him; besides Griselda, Elizabeth Dawnborn also looked doubtful. But the rest of the Wizengamot was shouting for him, clamoring for him, more enthusiastically than they had ever done in the last days for poor Rufus.

Erasmus accepted it. He had not wanted the position thrust upon him like this; he would have preferred to come to power as Minister through a legitimate election, and to have some idea of how to deal with the _vates_ beforehand. But no one had expected Rufus to be assassinated, and no one had expected the war to come upon them so suddenly. Erasmus had laid contingency plans for such a measure, and they were in effect now. As the only one with a set of plans, he rose easily to power.

There were no Dark wizards on the Wizengamot, or at least none stupid enough to say so in public. There were only Light and undeclared wizards, and they knew where the power flowed now.

So that was how he came, a day later, to be sitting behind the Minister's desk, and to be writing out his second order. The first, which was not, in some ways, as urgent, and would go out in tomorrow's _Daily Prophet_, was an edict outlawing use of the _absorbere_ gift. It was the most powerful and dangerous Dark magic in Britain at the moment, and had no legitimate effects to outweigh its bad ones. Also, though, it was a test for Harry Potter. If he obeyed the edict, he would probably fall in line with the Ministry; if not, then Erasmus would know him for an enemy.

The second was more a precaution than anything else, but Erasmus knew that these people had valuable information, and also that the _vates_ would try to keep them away from the Ministry if he could. Seizing them this way couldn't be helped.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Somehow, even after his mother's description, Draco hadn't imagined the Dreamer's Crown would bring him to a place that looked like this.

He stood on a high hill, covered with misty grass, stalks of light that swayed slowly back and forth. The fog that crept in and out between the blades was the color of milk lit from within, and twined cold fingers around his legs. To the left one path stretched away, and to the right another one. In front of him was what Draco supposed counted as the situation he put on the Crown to lucidly dream about.

He walked slowly towards it. It showed him and Harry, facing each other, still replicas that made his skin prickle slightly with how identical they were to the real thing. His own expression was angry. Harry's was simply closed.

From the tales, he knew what he had to do. It just wasn't that easy to do, in the end. But, needs must.

He took a deep breath and stepped into the replica of himself.

Sound and motion absorbed him at once, and he found himself standing in a corridor of Hogwarts, not the misty meadows the Crown had brought him to. Part of his mind remained hovering behind the rest, though, able to see and judge. So when the words emerged from his mouth, he didn't have to own up to them as being _completely_ his. Which was rather a comfort, given what those words were.

"I don't care!" he was shouting. "You shouldn't have done it! You didn't know what was out there!"

Harry simply watched him, face colder than Draco had ever seen it before. Harry usually wore a mulish expression when he'd been caught doing something wrong and didn't want to admit to it, or an emotionless one when he'd fastened on a course of action _he_ thought was right. This look, though, was one of exquisite, cold anger. This was a Harry who was keeping his word about not suppressing his emotions. He did hold his tongue, though, apparently waiting for the end of Draco's tirade.

"And don't tell me that you _knew_ what was out there, thanks to your visions," Draco was raging on. "You know how dangerous those sendings from Voldemort are. Any one of them could be false. Why in the name of Merlin didn't you come and get me, Harry?"

Harry's head lifted. The motion exposed his throat, but Draco didn't think he had ever seen his partner look less vulnerable than he did right now. Steady rage burned in his green eyes.

"I did fetch other people," Harry said quietly, in a voice that made the stones of the corridor frost over. "Just not you."

The scene froze. Draco could feel the words leaping to his tongue in response, accusing Harry of not valuing him enough. This was the point where the argument turned. Either he spoke those words, or he choked them back and admitted that, yes, he'd been rather impossible to fetch at the moment Harry needed him. The right-hand road led to what would happen if he said those words, the left-hand one to what would happen if he admitted he was wrong.

Draco watched as the two figures of himself and Harry dissolved and spun away into the reaching mist. Down the right-hand road the vision sped, and he saw Harry drawing away from him, keeping more secrets, leaving Draco behind more and more often, because all he did when fetched was complain about the problems of his own life. The ending of that road was uncertain, since it reached into war, but Draco was sure it ended either with Harry dying in battle, alone, or surviving but leaving him completely, hardening himself against needing Draco when Draco served mostly as a source of stress.

Down the left-hand road the vision spread, and he saw things changing between them during the war, and not always for the better. But he could be a support at Harry's back when Harry needed one, and a Dark wizard who could make decisions and urge tactics that a Light wizard wouldn't, and the counterbalance—

Draco jerked his head and made a disgusted noise in his throat. Must he serve as a counterbalance to Harry's _brother?_

But the left-hand road seemed to be saying he would whether he wanted it or not. Draco put his hands over his face, and let out a loud and lofty sigh.

When he peeked between his fingers, the vision was still there.

_All right, then. I'm wise enough to know which I prefer. I thought I was done becoming an adult, but obviously not._

A voice answered him, low and amused. Draco wondered if it was his own voice, from the future, or the voice of the crown itself, or perhaps even the voice of a more adult Harry. _It does not end until you are dead._

And the vision dissolved in turn, and Draco, his decision made, woke up.

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

It was gone.

He had been right. Pulling free of Voldemort's hold the way he had had substantially damaged his mind.

Snape leaned his head against his hands and fought down the urge to scream, to rage, to lash out. It was not easy. His concentration was truly in tatters. The art of focusing intently on one thing that he'd developed for so long—to brew potions, to come up with revenge against his enemies, to catch a student making subtle mistakes in class—was slipping from him.

He was an Occlumens. He knew his own mind. He had patrolled it the moment the initial excitement had died, with Harry back on the Tower, having told them the news of the visions he had witnessed, and all of them making their way back down to the hospital wing and Minerva.

Large parts of his memories, especially his younger ones, were missing. Wounds in his Occlumency pools meant he would have a harder time suppressing his emotions than usual, for now and a long time to come. But the biggest casualty was his concentration. That was not a surprise. Voldemort had used Snape's intensity to his advantage when he had planted those dreams. And Snape had shredded that part of his mind in getting away.

Though he also felt lighter for the first time in years, no longer carrying some of his hatreds, he was not entirely sure if this was worth the trade. Harry needed him as a father, as a skilled Potions brewer, as a man who would not go mad if something emotionally draining happened, but could handle it calmly and efficiently. Was Snape going to be able to do that, with his mind damaged the way it was?

He stood over his cauldron of purple poison, which he would turn against Voldemort and his Death Eaters now, and let himself taste weariness. A horrid childhood, loathsome school years, an equally horrible—at least now—service of three years to Voldemort, eleven years of unshaken allegiance to Albus Dumbledore, a change to Harry's side, and now, another change. He was continually being required to rise from his bed and rebuild his life, or endure some new and innovative torture over part of it. Could he do it again?

_Yes. Again and again._

He had made a choice that was really a myriad of choices on the night Harry had rebuilt his mind and magic after the Chamber of Secrets. He had said he would choose from day to day, recast his allegiance again and again. He had made that choice, of course, much less weary of body and mind, certain he could do things that now seemed impossible or beyond him.

_Yes. You can do this. You must. Again and again._

He forced himself to his feet and towards the Potions books on the far shelf of his office. He had thought he brewed a potion to cure Occlumency wounds, when in fact he had brewed a version of liquid Imperius under Voldemort's direction. The Imperius potion could still be useful, but now he _needed_ to trace the steps of research he had never actually performed, and create the potion that would heal his own wounds.

He would become what he had to, to survive and to aid his son.

_I belong to myself. And I choose this. Again and again._

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Narcissa defied embraces.

Her son had hugged her that day. Harry had hugged her, after he had explained, as gently as he could, that Lucius was gone back to the Dark Lord. Even Regulus had hugged her, as awkwardly as possible, before stepping back and giving her a thoughtful look.

"You didn't like that, did you?" he asked.

"No." Narcissa didn't bother glancing away from the fire. She sat near one of the hearths in Silver-Mirror, one that didn't have a Floo connection, so that no one could possibly come through and disturb her on accident. "Now leave me."

And Regulus had nodded and climbed to his own bed, leaving Narcissa, the night after the night it happened, to stare at the flames. Anyone who was in the same room with her, and not privy to her thoughts, would probably have imagined she was brooding.

She was not brooding. She would have a right to, given the family she was born into and the family she'd married into, but she was not.

She was murderously _angry._

When Harry had explained the basis of the hatred Voldemort had used to snare his Death Eaters back again, Narcissa had nodded, and said she understood. But she had looked at Severus, still standing at Harry's side, and Peter Pettigrew, pale but there. Regulus might be said to have an unfair advantage, with the mark of Lady Death on his arm in place of the Dark Mark. But the others had resisted and fought back of their own free wills, and managed to remain.

Lucius's love for her was not strong enough for that, and the knowledge curdled like sour milk in Narcissa's stomach.

Narcissa did not have to brood. She felt anger striking through her, keen and clear and white as the trunk of a young birch. She was not required to think of other things in order to keep from thinking of Lucius and going mad. She would think of him without going mad. She would think of him with disgust shining in her like a star.

She would face him again, of that she had no doubt. Lord Voldemort wanted to kill those Harry loved, and torment those he had taken. Of course she and Lucius would have to duel with such a dark mind behind the scenes.

She would do it gladly, and bring Lucius back or kill him.

She lifted her head, knowing her teeth flashed like a wolf's in the firelight, and glad of it.

_I do not want a husband whose love is not as strong as mine. I will not be the dependent one._

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Somehow—she was not sure how, because, really, since she was the baby of the family, she would have expected it the opposite way around—she was the one moving quietly, competently, in the background, doing what needed to be done, while everyone else raged and cried and vowed vengeance.

And she was the one who noticed, and worried about, Ron.

Ginny wiped her hands on a towel and put the last plate down. She was good at the cleaning charms for the dishes, but not the drying charm. She turned, slowly, to stare at Ron, the only one remaining at the table in the Burrow's kitchen. Everyone else had retreated to the drawing room, where they could talk to each other about Percy, and continue crying and raging and vowing vengeance, without being separated by the width of the table.

Her mother had not stopped crying since Ginny and Ron, returning home by Floo from Hogwarts, told her what Harry had told them. Her father had been pale and mumbling since official confirmation and condolences had come from the Ministry, via an owl with a black envelope. Bill and Charlie had arrived in the middle of the afternoon, and appeared inclined to comfort their parents half the time and half the time reminisce about Percy and his life. The twins were talking intently to each other about what they'd do to the person who'd killed him.

Ron was silent.

_Am I really the only one who noticed? _Ginny thought, studying Ron, whose face was so pale it made his freckles stand out like spots of blood on snow. He'd clutched his wand the entire time, too, and refused to meet anyone else's eyes. Every hour that passed just saw him become stiffer and stiffer, his jaw clamped so tightly shut it had to hurt, his nostrils flaring like a wild horse's.

Ginny knew he couldn't be blaming himself for Percy's death. He wasn't that stupid, to think he could have prevented it. And he didn't blame Harry, either, or else he would have punched Harry in the jaw the moment he told them about Percy. Ron wasn't one to suppress his feelings.

But she didn't know what else this was.

"Ron," she said quietly, and sat down next to him.

He didn't respond. It was Ginny's belief that he honestly didn't hear her. She reached out and threaded her fingers with his, forcing him to let go of his wand. When it rolled down the table, he startled and scrambled after it, knocking the chair down. He'd got quite big the previous summer, and even though he'd hit his seventeenth birthday and received his full complement of magic, Ginny didn't think he'd stopped growing yet.

When he had his wand in his grip, he went right back to being a statue. Ginny, though, was tired of that. She didn't even care about the magic that hung around him and muttered like a thunderstorm. She had lost one member of her family tonight. She wasn't going to lose another because Ron went dashing away in some mad quest for revenge, or—or did something else. Ginny couldn't imagine what else he might do, but she knew it would be bad.

"Ron," she said.

He at least looked at her this time, but only to shake his head and whisper, "Go away, Ginny."

"No." At least he blinked at her, then, as if he couldn't imagine that she wouldn't obey him. Ginny stared straight back. Ron had obviously forgotten whom he was talking to. They'd been quite close as children, as the two siblings closest in age, and because the twins had each other and Percy fussed so. But they'd also fought most often. Ron had a terrible temper, one that Bill and Charlie rarely roused, Percy was afraid of, and the twins laughed off. But Ginny wasn't afraid of Ron. She never had been.

"Ginny," he said, and his voice was so polite and calm that she might have been fooled if she hadn't seen the expression on his face beforehand. "_Bugger. Off._"

"No."

Now he was shaking, his magic swirling around him, dancing up and down restlessly. Ginny let out a careful breath. Fred and George were the strongest wizards in the Weasley family, and geniuses with modifying and creating spells. But Ron had a _reserve_ of power that none of the rest of them did, connected to his temper, and since the first of March, he'd been managing curses and hexes and jinxes that had been beyond him a week before that. Fred and George could badly hurt an enemy. Ron would go on hitting back long after he should have fallen.

"Ron, listen. To. Me," she said. "I know that you're upset about Percy—"

Ron gave a jagged laugh and ripped his hands away. At least, he tried. Ginny braced herself on the chair, and retained a grip on one wrist. She wasn't as strong as he was, but she was just as stubborn.

"You don't know the half of it," he whispered. "You _don't_, so don't dare pretend you do! Selfish git, why did he have to go and _die_ like that?"

And suddenly, Ginny did know what this was about. The last time Ron had seen Percy, over Easter holidays, they had argued terribly, mostly because Ron's ultimate loyalty was to his best friend Connor—and, through him, to Harry—while Percy had made a point of standing with Minister Scrimgeour even when he'd moved openly against Harry. Percy had ended up leaving the Burrow early. Ron hadn't apologized to him.

And now Percy was dead, and there would be no chance of an apology, and it was obvious that Ron blamed himself and his temper.

"Merlin, Ron," said Ginny, and leaned forward and hugged her brother despite his struggles. "He didn't die blaming you. You have to believe that. He knew it was just politics. He argued with other people, and he didn't so much make up with them as mumble something at them later and then talk like everything was normal again. You know that. Percy's temper embarrassed him. He was your brother, and you were his, and he loved you, and he died defending the wizard he was loyal to. I promise, it's all right. You didn't make his last moments any more miserable."

Ron's magic was a stone weight on her shoulders. Ginny wondered, for a long moment, if what she said would be enough.

Then Ron uttered one great, crackling sob, and with that the dam broke.

Ginny held him as he cried, and after a time bowed her head and joined in. She felt his arms come around her in turn, and hold her close. It had been the longest day of her life. She had turned out, unexpectedly, to be the strong one who thought of food and other basic necessities when no one else did.

But even the strong ones needed to collapse sometimes. And even Ginny had done her share of arguing with Percy, and was perfectly capable of feeling that she hadn't appreciated him enough when he was alive, and now he was _gone_ and she would never have the chance to tell him.

So she cried, and Ron stroked her hair and whispered to her, and so they mourned their brother together.

SSSSSSSSSS

Millicent did not cry. It was not allowed.

She went home to her mother at once when the Headmistress gave her permission, and she told her about what Harry had seen in the vision, and Elfrida nodded and put her arms around Marian and rocked her, and there were a few tears, with Marian crying because her mother was crying.

There were no tears for Millicent. She was her father's magical heir, and she might soon have to fight him. Besides, she knew what all the oldest codes of behavior for Dark families said, and the Bulstrodes followed the oldest ones. When a family member turned traitor to a cause the family had sworn to—as Adalrico had; the formal family oath would not let him fight Harry or Connor, but it would let him fight Harry's other allies—the head of the family was supposed to execute that person.

Millicent was the head of the Bulstrode family in the wake of her father's defection.

She stood with her hand on her mother's shoulder, and stared into the fire, and gave commands in a low voice. The house elves took care of things, including setting up wards of their own strong magic around a sheltered room that would be Marian's and Elfrida's last retreat in times of trouble.

Millicent intended to find a stronger, more secure sanctuary. She had no doubt that Voldemort would send her father against his family, too, and Adalrico knew all the secrets of the Blackstone estate, including some that wouldn't be revealed to Millicent until his death.

She did not cry. She told her mother and her little sister and the house elves what to do, and then went to the Floo to contact her family's solicitor. If her death occurred, in battle or otherwise, it was necessary to designate Marian her heir, so the family properties could pass on smoothly. The family was always more important than the individual.

_Duramus_, her family's motto was. _We endure._

_We endure anything, _Millicent thought, as she waited for the solicitor to speak to her. _Anything. Even this._

SSSSSSSSSSS

The Headmistress had indeed sealed off the Astronomy Tower, with a series of wards. They weren't linked to the school, however—Harry thought McGonagall was probably too weak from Snape's attack, still, to call upon the might of Hogwarts for a temporary measure—but were spellwork, which all the professors had worked together to build. Harry simply took them down, waited until Owen was past them, and then put them back.

Together, they climbed the stairs Harry had pounded up in frantic concern last night, and descended again early this morning. Or was it this morning? Harry cast a _Tempus_ charm, and shook his head. Not technically. It was one-o'clock in the morning on the eighth of June.

He wondered if he needed to be so precise, but he thought it would help him achieve the mindset he needed. He began to pace, back and forth, on top of the Tower, while Owen guarded the stairs and watched him, the sky, the staircase, and the other Towers more or less simultaneously.

_What do I need to do in this war?_

The answers tried to come clustering in as one great wave and overwhelm him, but Harry refused to allow them. He streamlined his mind into cool quietude, instead, glancing at the stars when he needed to see what that looked like. He had promised Henrietta he would not suppress his emotions again, but he had said nothing about suppressing thoughts. He knocked out the cold chains of logic in his mind, until he could hold them up and twist them around and admire what he saw.

_Destroy the Horcruxes. Those are the key to destroying Voldemort. I don't yet know a way around the Unassailable Curses, which makes it hard to set up a timetable for that. Nevertheless, I need to get rid of them to have any chance at getting rid of the Dark Lord._

_Make sure he doesn't take me through the hatred, the way he almost did last night—the night before last. Occlumency would be the simplest way, but I made that vow to Henrietta, and I won't go back on it. Besides, suppressing my emotions only leads to all sorts of other problems, and we cannot afford that now, for me to collapse and build myself back up. So—_

_What is it to be, then?_

Harry paced back and forth in the light of the stars to which he'd sent the phoenix song as a cry of defiance. The moon was visible this time, a faint, slowly waxing sliver.

_It will have to be pushing straight through, _Harry thought at last, reluctantly letting the realizations trickle through his head. _Not suppressing my emotions. Not hiding from whatever visions he sends me of attacks and cruelty. Not giving in to the hatred. _Living _with it, no matter what happens._

_I know what kind of war it will be. Voldemort has his Death Eaters, and none of them are vulnerable, not in the way that the people I want to protect are. I have innocents, Muggles as well as wizards, and I'll be fighting a defensive war almost exclusively. With long lines. _Harry grimaced. _Voldemort could strike anywhere in Britain or Ireland, and he won't always send me a vision when he does. Even if he does send visions, to try to wear down my resistance and make me hate him, some of them will be false, or will be after the fact, so I can't do anything to prevent the attacks._

_My best hope is to give people in local areas the ability to defend themselves. Call on some of my allies to help in particular places—the werewolves in London to help with protecting London Muggles and wizards, for example. Give what training I can to those who will accept it, so that their curses and wards will grow stronger. Establish safehouses where the most vulnerable people can hide. Let at least some Muggles—those who already have contact with the wizarding world, like parents of Muggleborn students—know what's happening, so they can make their way to the safehouses, take precautions, or do whatever they think is appropriate._

He would have to be careful, he knew. If he was correct, Juniper had already taken the Ministry. He was the strongest politician in the Wizengamot after Scrimgeour, either because the people following him sincerely believed in him, or because they wanted to use him and saw him as accommodating their purposes, or because they wanted what he wanted. Harry was almost sure he and the man would clash over the defensive measures Harry wanted to employ. And talking to Muggles about the wizarding world at all risked treading on the International Statute of Secrecy meant to separate the wizarding world and the non-magical one.

Harry was a bit surprised to find a well of indifference where he once would have been fretting about that.

_This is war, and lives are more important than laws. I'll do what I have to do. There are certain standards I'll never break—never using compulsion, for example. But I—I'm going to have to give up some pedestals I've placed myself on._

Was it compulsion to use his name and reputation as the Boy-Who-Lived, a power he had still barely tapped? No. Nor was it compulsion to keep secrets instead of being totally honest, or tell judicious lies to lure in allies who were purely political, or refuse to help those who wanted some insanely dangerous concession from him while they offered something temporary or slender in return. And if he believed that people like Juniper and Aurora Whitestag were hurting the wizarding world more than they were helping it, Harry would not hesitate to scorn them and strike out on his own.

_What's changed me?_

He knew the answer to that, of course.

_The revelation of what Voldemort can do. I forgot you, you bastard. I underestimated you. I won't do it again. I will become what I have to, do what I must, to survive this war and win it for others and myself, without breaking those principles dearest to me._

He knew it would not be any easier than fighting through the hatred Voldemort intended to press into his mind. For one thing, these were surely the same kinds of promises Dumbledore had made himself during the First War, and that had eaten his morals until he agreed to anything, thought of anything, scrabbled after anything, to try and preserve a scrap of what he valued.

_I must not become Voldemort. I must not become Dumbledore. I must not become Juniper. I must steer a path through all of them, and one mistake has the potential to lose me everything._

Harry snarled softly, and a wave of blue phoenix fire sprang up around his shoulders and raced down his arms, intensely bright in the darkness.

_If that's what I have to do, that's what I have to do. And I have to take precautions with my own life, and not do stupid things, and trust others to make their own decisions about fighting, and rely on other people as well as having them rely on me._

_I've never been good at any of those._

It didn't matter. The war demanded that he be good at them, and they were changes Harry was willing to make to accommodate the war. Those things he could not give up, he would protect and defend with all his might, but he would—not be as pleasant or as honest or as trusting as he had been. Those were virtues more appropriate to a time of peace than of war.

_So I'll bring peace back again. And think of what lies beyond the end, not just in this war. Like Connor said, show Voldemort he's only a tiny cloud in the sky of my life. I won't use compulsion because that means the end of any chance of my becoming a _vates. _I won't sacrifice lives unless forced to make that choice or unless someone else willingly chooses to become a sacrifice, because I want as many people as possible to live and enjoy life beyond the end of the war. I won't destroy institutions just to destroy them, because we'll need them when he's dead._

Harry smiled faintly. He thought he had made the choices he could make, with the road he had in sight. If he had to make others as he went along, he would do so.

He spun and went back towards the stairs with Owen on his heels, opening and shutting the wards behind them. The moment they were back in the main school, Harry could hear a commotion, people bolting down the halls, someone shouting. He frowned and started towards the hospital wing.

Madam Pomfrey was there, of course, hovering with her wand out over McGonagall. The Headmistress was arguing with her about getting out of bed, but she turned around and changed her tone the moment she saw Harry.

"Harry," she said precisely. "I'm sorry. I couldn't stop them. I would have raised the school's wards against them, but—"

"You could have done that if you wanted a _heart attack!_" yelled Madam Pomfrey, looking more flustered than Harry had ever seen her. Harry supposed she might have finally found a patient who flustered her more than he did.

"Please explain what happened, Headmistress," Harry said calmly, his eyes fastened on hers.

"Ministry Aurors came through the Floo," McGonagall said, after studying him for a long moment. She was pale, but her voice was clear. "They took Poppy as a hostage, and by implication, me, I suppose. They had warrants for the arrest of Severus Snape, Peter Pettigrew, and Regulus Black. I'm sorry, Harry. They've taken them to Tullianum as suspected spies for Voldemort."


	2. Their Wills Be As Steel

Thanks for the reviews yesterday! Quite a welcome back.

**Chapter Two: Their Wills Be As Steel**

"I see, Headmistress," Harry said, calm as the wind before a storm. "Thank you for telling me."

Minerva put one elbow beneath her to urge her body up, hating how weak she was, even now. A night to recover should have done more than this. "Harry," she said softly, knowing her efforts were probably useless, but feeling she should say this anyway. "Do nothing unwise."

"Oh, Headmistress, I wouldn't _dream_ of it." Harry's eyes, meeting hers, were guileless as a first-year's. That would have stood no chance of fooling her even if he'd made an effort to modify his tone of voice to less than sickly sweet. "I think enough unwise things have been done in the last hour. Don't you agree?"

She drew breath to respond, and then fell silent as she felt the magic in the room gather and blow through a change. Harry's brow flickered with true lightning to match the lightning bolt scar. Through the windows of the hospital wing came the sudden scream of thunder, where before the night had been calm. Poppy let out a little exclamation and moved over to shut the windows with swift taps of her wand. Minerva was sure that that motion carrying her further from Harry was only coincidence in the way she was sure the Aurors had only chosen Severus, Peter, and Regulus to question by coincidence.

"Harry," Minerva murmured. Her heart labored unnecessarily hard. This was Harry, a student—a child—she had come to know well over the years. "I meant what I said."

His eyes blinked, then focused on her. "So did I," he said, and it was unnerving how his face remained so calm while outside the wind picked up and wailed. Perhaps its voice was speaking for him, though, Minerva thought, expressing all the anger that could not come from his mouth. "I will not go alone to the Ministry. I will not assassinate Minister Juniper and cause us all trouble and havoc again. But I _will_ get my father back, and Peter and Regulus, too. They've been through enough. Even if the Ministry treats them with utmost politeness, they don't deserve this, too."

Minerva stared. She didn't think she had ever heard Harry refer to Severus as his father like that, without hesitation or flinching or consciousness of who might overhear the name. He turned and strode towards the doors of the hospital wing without giving her the chance to comment, either. The Rosier-Henlin boy, who had been hovering in the corridor, caught up with him and said something of which Minerva could only make out the word "Draco." Harry shook his head and gave a clipped response, and the other boy nodded and kept at his heels. He was Harry's sworn companion, Minerva remembered. He had heard the declaration that Harry would not go to the Ministry alone. He would insure Harry kept that promise, if his own word did not.

"I could Stun him and keep him here, quietly," Poppy said, coming up beside her.

Minerva snorted and glanced at the matron from a corner of her eye. "Do you really think you could, Poppy? Answer me truthfully now."

"No." Poppy sighed and patted at her graying hair with her wand. "No, damn it, I can't." Minerva expected it when she turned fiercely on her. "And _you_! You are to lie still and quiet! What did you mean, sitting up like that and reaching for the wards when the Aurors came through the Floo?"

Minerva ground her teeth. Poppy tended to treat every patient in the hospital wing like a recalcitrant first-year Gryffindor, unless they did exactly as she said. That only two of those descriptions applied to Minerva made her all the more resentful. "I meant to keep them from harming anyone under my care, Poppy—"

"You are _meant_ to lie still and quiet," Poppy repeated, and abruptly charmed her bed to lie flat. Before Minerva could sit up again in startled outrage, Poppy cast a binding spell, and then an alarm that would tell her if Minerva moved. Since her wand was on the bedside table, Minerva could only ineffectually glare.

"We are not going to lose our Headmistress," Poppy answered her gaze, as if that made up for the indignity, and walked towards the back of the hospital wing, probably to fetch another foul-tasting potion.

Minerva closed her eyes. She hated her weak heart. A witch should still be strong and active in her seventies, not tied to a bed, even if the ropes were invisible.

Her only chance was to recover as quickly as she could. The world outside the hospital wing needed her too badly to let her lounge around in bed.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry's mind raced smoothly through the steps he would have to take as he went back to the dungeons with Owen. He was glad that this crisis had come after he'd made his decision and not before. If it had come before, then he might well have wavered and tried to let Juniper have his free will, twisted and hurtful of others as that free will was. Or he would have remembered that he didn't want a war on two fronts and been prepared to let the Ministry get away with almost anything.

But now—

He still didn't want a war on two fronts, and neither did the Ministry. Therefore, they shouldn't have taken Snape, Peter, and Regulus away. And someone else's free will ended when he tried to kill or imprison another person who had committed no crime. Harry had defended the Hogwarts students against Voldemort and his Death Eaters, not letting them have their free will simply to kill them.

This was another case where he would not let anything happen to people he loved and had sworn to protect.

He lengthened his stride as they passed the stairs that led to the Hufflepuff rooms. "Owen," he said over his shoulder. His sworn companion inclined his head to show he was listening. "Fetch Syrinx, if you would."

"No need," said a soft voice from near the top of the stairs, and Syrinx Gloryflower appeared. Her eyes were wide and clear and an unnaturally bright green; if she ever looked tired, she must do it in the moments when she was away from him. "I am here." She touched her left arm when Harry raised his eyebrow. "The scar felt when you had need of me, sir, and pulled me."

It still made Harry uneasy to hear a girl his own age call him "sir," but titles had fallen to the bottom of his list of things worth arguing about.

"Who else would you recommend?" he asked Owen bluntly.

"Where are we going?" Syrinx asked, and Harry told her the situation in a few terse sentences while Owen bowed his head in thought. She nodded, her eyes growing wider and clearer and more serene.

"It depends on your goal, my l—Harry," said Owen, looking up again. "Do you want simply to free your father and his friends, or do it in a way that avoids open conflict with the Ministry?"

"Freeing them is the first priority," said Harry. "Everything else is secondary. Including avoiding or inciting war with the Ministry." He saw Syrinx's eyes fire, but of course they would. She was in training to be a war witch, and she preferred conflict to words. "I will try words first. There is no need, as the Headmistress says, to be unwise." He heard the storm scream outside, and he barely suppressed the impulse to lift his head and scream back to it. "But I will need those who won't hesitate to fight beside me against the Ministry if something goes wrong."

Owen nodded. "Then I would recommend Alastor Moody, the werewolf Camellia, and Narcissa Malfoy."

"I won't disturb Narcissa," said Harry, crushing down his immediate impulse to complain about the length of time it would take his allies to get here, and what might happen to Peter, Regulus, and Snape in the meantime. _Yes, it will take a few minutes to Apparate here. But I will not go unguarded. I promised I wouldn't. _"She's grieving. And are you sure about Moody? He worked for the Ministry for decades."

"I can judge loyalty," said Owen quietly. "He's loyal to you, Harry. You give him something to fight for. And the Ministry was never a good fit for him, except maybe during the First War. He's too wild, and his standards of justice are his own. Summon him."

"And if you won't call Mrs. Malfoy," Syrinx put in unexpectedly, "call Nymphadora Tonks. She knows the Ministry, and I don't think she'll look kindly on what they just did."

"Thank you, both," Harry murmured, and then turned to use the communication spell. Camellia would have to have someone Apparate her, since she was Muggle, but she lived with several werewolves who were witches and wizards, and it was a long way from the full of the moon. All three allies were excellent candidates, he thought, now that Owen and Syrinx had mentioned them.

_Do you see? _whispered a part of his conscience that he rarely listened to. _It is better to consult with others when you can. It gives you a context for your own decisions. It stabilizes the way you react. And it is wiser and more adult than simply running off to the Ministry on your own._

_It does hurt more, though, _Harry responded, and then heard Moody's voice through the flare of phoenix song, and turned to explaining again.

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

Aurora lifted her head, uneasy. Erasmus had called for her a few hours ago, after he was convinced that he was secure in his power, and she had not left the Minister's office since. They'd spent time looking through paperwork, discussing those laws and funding requests Scrimgeour had been considering when he died, and there was nothing in any of them to cause her the feelings she experienced now.

She looked up and out the enchanted window. Of course, since the Ministry was underground, the window wasn't real, but it was charmed, currently, to show a view of Muggle London at night, and probably would be for quite a long time. Erasmus believed in looking reality in the face as much as possible.

The night had been calm and clear when she last looked, riding under the last light of the slowly waxing moon. And now—

"Erasmus, look," she whispered, gripping his arm.

He looked, just as clouds rushed together in the middle of the sky. Lightning seared over the buildings like a Muggle torch magnified to elephantine size. It spat once, and then a steady rain began to fall. Aurora found the rain more terrible than the thunder, somehow. It spoke of cold, unwavering vengeance, and slow floods, not uncontrolled strikes like the lightning did.

"Is this a Dark attack?" Erasmus asked, not moving his arm from her grasp.

"Not He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named," Aurora said, finding a name and a face, now, for the magic that she could feel boiling throughout London and heading towards the front door of the Ministry. "That's Harry."

SSSSSSSSSSS

Erasmus was prepared by the time Harry and his—troupe, was perhaps the best name, given that no other single word could possibly encompass the two teenagers, two former Aurors, and werewolf who followed him—came to his office. One of the Aurors, one who had remained loyal to the Ministry, had questioned him on what to do, and Erasmus had told him to let them in. This was the most perfect test for the _vates_, really, to see what would happen when he was face-to-face with the Minister he _had_ to accept would take Rufus's place.

On their own, Mad-Eye Moody and the werewolf, who was snarling softly and not attempting to conceal her amber eyes or her teeth at all, might have been intimidating enough. Nymphadora Tonks and the other two children were trying, but they could not quite manage it.

Harry outshone them all.

He paced through the office door in wild silence, his eyes finding Erasmus and not wavering. Their deep green was not, as the _Daily Prophet_ had often and ridiculously described them, the color of the Killing Curse. Instead, Erasmus thought, they were the color of a stalking tiger's eyes. And Harry obviously believed that he had prey in front of him. His magic quietly piled through the door after him and filled the office from end to end. He would never have dared that with Rufus.

Erasmus decided he would let the boy speak first. What he said should be revealing. So he sat, and studied them, and listened to the werewolf's snarl with a shudder of distaste, and clamped down on Aurora's arm when she would have stood or spoken.

"Let them out," Harry said.

_Blunt. Lacking eloquence._ Erasmus lifted his head and his eyebrows in the same moment, to show that he was not afraid. "I assume this is about the servants of You-Know-Who?" he asked.

"Voldemort," said Harry.

Erasmus couldn't help it; he flinched. He had seen the victims of the spells Voldemort had woven to make his name so feared. He saw Harry note the flinch, and his eyes changed again. Now they were hawk-like, staring and imperious, and the small, contemptuous smile that curled his mouth was that of a strong man faced with weakness.

Erasmus shook the impression off. He was _not_ afraid. The boy must learn that he could not get his way all the time simply because he was a powerful wizard. "I took them into custody on hearing of the attack on Hogwarts," he said calmly. "We need to understand how this Dark magic that apparently possesses the minds of its victims and causes them to nearly kill Headmistresses works. I promise, they will be well-treated. I appreciate that Severus Snape was able to stop short of the kill." _Though I would wager McGonagall had more to do with that than he did. _"I only want to ask them questions in an environment where we will not be interrupted."

"You could have done that at Hogwarts," said Harry, who was, really, dreadfully unwilling to compromise. "Behind a privacy ward." He shifted, and Erasmus was startled and disconcerted to see that the two adolescents behind him, a tall, dark-haired boy and a golden-haired girl who looked as if she had a good Light pedigree, mimicked him without thought. _He has sworn companions? That, I had not heard._ "There was no need to bring them to Tullianum."

"It was a precaution only." Erasmus softened his voice as much as possible. The magic felt like claws resting against his face, ready to rasp and take off skin. The boy had anger and to spare, given the storm outside and that sensation. Erasmus would avoid upsetting him if he could, but the truth remained that the boy _had_ to learn to face reality. "As I said, we still do not know all the details, but we hope to learn them. If they had been traitors and servants of You-Know-Who, we would have to isolate them from others. If they are not, there is no harm done. We are questioning them now—"

Harry stiffened. The claws on Erasmus's face dug in until he knew they could shear down and open his jugular. Outside, the lightning flashed several times. Beside him, Aurora sat still as still.

"Questioning them, you said." Harry's voice was calm and flat. Given the magic, Erasmus could have found his control terrifying—_would_ have found it so, if he would let himself feel such emotions around a boy so young.

"Yes," Erasmus said.

"How?"

If fear was permissible for a Minister with so much on his shoulders, Erasmus would have felt fear then. The boy had taken a step forward, and his green eyes seemed to swallow up the world, and his soft voice was only a further terror.

"We are not barbarians," said Erasmus. He knew why the boy was so upset, but he was allowed to be resentful at the implications of Harry's anger. "We do not torture our prisoners. We are merely using Veritaserum."

"And were they given a choice in the taking of it?" Harry asked, cocking his head.

"Such choices are usually suspended in a time of war," said Erasmus. "As this is." He became aware that he was leaning away from Harry, and he forced himself to sit up straight, though he still maintained the grip on Aurora's arm. She had had—unfortunate—tensions with Harry, and might say something even now unless he made it clear that she should not. "I am acting within the letter and the spirit of Ministry law, _vates_, I assure you."

"I don't believe you."

Erasmus raised an eyebrow high, irritated at last. "I am an Elder of the Wizengamot, child. I do know Ministry law and edicts better than you do." He knew that the claws against his face might grow sharper, but some things had to be said. He would continue to do what was right, not what was expedient.

Harry simply stared at him.

"Do you have any evidence to the contrary?" Erasmus demanded. "Have you seen into the cells where we are questioning them, to know that our Aurors are abusing their authority?"

"Now that," said Harry, "is a good idea."

The floor turned transparent, images of shining stone overlaid on air. Erasmus found himself staring straight down as floor after floor changed, and then they could see into the underground recesses of Tullianum, the blank, bare walls somewhere between gray and yellow in color. Harry's magic, unsurprisingly, had taken them straight to the Death Eaters.

The view changed and swooped, making Erasmus's stomach heave and his mind rebel. Given the angle they were looking at, they _should_ have been gazing down at the heads of the Aurors and their prisoners. But Harry had changed everything, and now they were looking at them straight on. And the Aurors could see them as well; Rippleworth actually dropped a vial of Veritaserum, which rang on the stone. Erasmus watched tiny drops of clear liquid escape between shards of glass, and tried to contain his anger.

This cell held Severus Snape, understandably surrounded by five Aurors holding their wands, since he was the most dangerous Death Eater, and had almost killed the Headmistress. His head lolled, his face slack with the effects of the truth potion. Erasmus did not need to look at Harry to feel how intensely his concentration focused on the man who was, if rumor must be supported, not only guardian but like a father to Harry.

"Was he given a choice about taking the potion?" Harry asked. Erasmus started to answer that he had instructed the Aurors to explain what refusing Veritaserum in such a situation would do, but it was Rippleworth who answered, his voice as high and frightened as a much younger man's.

"I—we told him that he had nothing to fear if he really wasn't guilty. He still would have refused, so—" And then he stuttered to a stop, though more, Erasmus thought, because someone in the room had cast _Silencio_ on him than because it was his choice.

Long moments passed in which Erasmus thought his own heartbeat irregularly loud. Then he realized it was the magic's heartbeat, surging back and forth a few pulses behind the thunder that continued to rage outside the windows.

Their vision of the cell moved a few times, showing, clearly, red finger-marks on either side of Snape's face, where the Aurors had probably gripped it and held his nose in order to force him to swallow.

"I see," Harry said.

Erasmus glanced at him. He intended it to be a quick look, so that he might turn back and reassure his Aurors they had done nothing wrong—they _needed_ to know the truth about what had happened at Hogwarts, and if Snape had been innocent, he really need have nothing to fear from the Veritaserum—but he found himself transfixed by Harry's eyes. The flare in them this time was deepest, purest rage.

"I am taking them now," Harry said. Still calm. But the magic pressed closer and closer, reminding Erasmus of a chained dragon, and the sworn companions the boy had acquired in defiance of all law and custom were shifting from foot to foot as if they longed to charge. "They have done nothing wrong, and their rights have been _violated_—" that word was a whipcrack "—by the Ministry. If you are unsatisfied, I will give you my memories of what happened at the school to place in a Pensieve, and I am sure Headmistress McGonagall will be pleased to do the same thing. But you will not keep them here any longer."

"Harry," said Erasmus, hoping a personal appeal might calm him. "Think, boy. We do not need a war on two fronts."

That small, contemptuous smile curled Harry's mouth again. "I agree," he said. "You do not need one. Therefore, you would be well-advised to release Severus Snape, Peter Pettigrew, and Regulus Black into my custody _immediately._"

Erasmus stared at him for a moment, then shook his head. _He imagines that he can threaten the Ministry all on his own? And he threatens war over something as minor as this? Perhaps he is more unstable than I thought._

"We cannot divide the wizarding world," he said. "Not now. There has been no panic so far only because our people are reeling in shock, still. The Minister has been assassinated. Death Eaters are at work again. The Dark Mark has been seen. All these are signs of the war to come. We cannot—we _must_ not have a civil war on top of them. You must work with us." He touched the text of the edict he'd been planning to send to the _Daily Prophet_ in the morning. "The first step is in stopping use of the _absorbere_ gift. It is Dark magic, too dangerous to use."

Harry's eyes half-lidded. Erasmus felt a surge of anger mixed with fear. _He cannot turn against this. He cannot! We cannot divide our forces._

"Too dangerous not to use," Harry said softly, and he was almost purring. That was the rumble of a great cat, though, Erasmus thought, not the comforting purr of a Kneazle. "Voldemort is an _absorbere._ Do you really think he cares what the Ministry says about use of that gift?"

"At least you will not use it," Erasmus countered. "You will not be like him. We must not lose all our standards in this war as we did in the first one."

"It seems to me that you have already lost them," said Harry. "Forcing prisoners to take Veritaserum."

"No one _forced_—"

"Those say otherwise, Juniper." Harry nodded to the red finger-marks on Snape's face again. "And I have had _enough_ of this. I will fight Voldemort on my own if need be, but I will not allow the Ministry to take anyone I love from me. I have had _enough_ of that from the Dark Lord." His eyes swooped for a moment into shadows that made Erasmus tense and Mad-Eye Moody grip his wand. The werewolf edged forward with an eager snarl. Harry didn't seem to hear it. "Answer me clearly now, Erasmus Juniper. Are you my enemy or my friend?"

"I am your Minister," said Erasmus. He could feel despair welling up, but the Minister was no more allowed to succumb to despair than he was to fear. The _stupid_ child. Did he not understand the division he would cause if he turned against the Ministry? Did he not realize Erasmus was the only one who could lead them in this war and stood a chance of winning it, but that that chance would be much reduced if Harry acted like a wild or Dark wizard?

"Wrong answer," Harry said, voice delicate as the first flower after winter. "_Sir._"

His magic rose around him, thick, solid as the limbs of a beast, growing, and plunged down into Tullianum. Erasmus caught glimpses of it moving through other visions, but the one he had the best view of was the snatching of Severus Snape. A howling whirlwind scooped him up and bore him through suddenly appearing, and as suddenly closing, tunnels in the stone. In moments he and Pettigrew and Black stood in the office, blinking—or lolling their heads, in the case of Snape, who was unconscious.

Harry, when Erasmus looked at him again, had black, serrated wings coming out of his back, and his eyes were as dark as Darkness.

"I would ask for your help," Harry said, "but that is clearly impossible. I would ask that you not interfere, at least, with my own war effort, but I see that is also impossible; you are too convinced of your own rectitude and unable to listen to the voices accusing you of hypocrisy. As long as I can, I will ignore you. Understand, Juniper, if you are in my way, and if you represent a serious hindrance to my efforts to keep others safe, I _will_ destroy you."

It was said so calmly that, by the time Erasmus fully absorbed the impact of the words, Harry was already moving. He flung up his arms, flapped the bladed wings once, and wrapped the former Death Eaters and the five people who had come with him in individual whirlwinds. Then a ninth one took him, and whipped him around in a circle, and together they vanished from the Ministry, gone via some method that did not disturb the anti-Apparition wards.

Erasmus was sure the green of the boy's eyes lingered after time, staring at him, and the invisible claws razed a thin line of blood down his cheek before departing. The storm fell unnaturally silent in the same moment.

Erasmus lifted his hand, in that silence, and touched his cheek. Then he turned to Aurora. She gave him a slight nod, and Erasmus wondered if she were really thinking what he was. The boy had given him a bit to think about, including whether it had been right to force Veritaserum onto even suspected Death Eaters, but his disrespect for the Ministry outweighed any benefit he might have offered.

"Well," he said. "It seems he must be brought to heel."

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

He'd felt it begin even as he fell into the grip of the intense, icy rage that had sustained him in the Ministry office. He'd felt Voldemort's grip, reaching out, snagging on the edges of his soul, trying to coax the rage into hatred, and the hatred into a hold that he could use to drag Harry to him.

Harry had fought two battles, one public, one private, but he'd managed to steer the hatred back into fury by the time they Apparated home from the Ministry. It had cost him, though. He collapsed to his knees on the Hogsmeade road, his breath rushing in and out of his lungs so hard it hurt, sweat damping his jumper and making his fringe more like seaweed than hair.

"Harry?" Regulus's hand was on his shoulder, which Harry thought half-wrong. He'd just rescued Regulus, so _he_ was the one who should sit back and let himself be taken care of, instead of trying to comfort Harry.

Then he remembered his decision on top of the Tower again. _I said I would rely on others as well as letting them rely on me._

"I'm all right, Regulus," he said softly, glancing up. But Owen leaned over him then, and his expression was so anxious that Harry frowned. "What is it?"

"Your scar's bleeding," said Owen.

"Voldemort reached out to me," Harry admitted, rising to his feet. "When he felt the emotions. He'll always be trying to take me, if he can. If I'd hated Juniper enough, he would have made another attempt."

Owen stared at him, horrified. "How are you going to live with that?" he finally demanded.

Harry blinked at him. _Really, what kind of question is that to ask? _"The same way I lived with it just now," he said. "Fight him off. I can't do anything else."

"You'll have to strengthen your Occlumency," said Snape, who _really_ had no business speaking, given that Harry's magic was the only thing holding him on his feet. His voice was still slurred from the Veritaserum, but regaining strength and sharpness. "To close the link between your scar and his mind."

"I'm not sure it will work," Harry said honestly, moving towards his guardian and casting one of the spells he'd learned while studying medical magic, which located hidden wounds. He found a few bruises along Snape's ribs, and had to breathe slowly to calm the impulse to break out into swearing. "This is based on a mark from Voldemort and the amount of hatred in a person's soul, not the connection that he and I had before."

"You will still try," Snape said, snapping his head up to stare at him. Harry smiled, then reached up and gently caressed his face, smoothing away the red finger-marks with the touch of his magic.

"Are you well?" he whispered.

"Yes. I told them the truth about the attack on Hogwarts, and they had not had time to ask more than a few embarrassing personal questions."

From the look in Snape's eyes, Harry was not sure he believed that, but he was forced to accept it as truth with the Veritaserum still in his blood. Besides, rest was the most important thing for Snape right now. "All right, sir," he said, and nodded to Regulus, Peter, Owen, and Syrinx. "Thank you for coming," he added, to Moody, Camellia, and Tonks. "Someone is waiting to transport you back to London, Camellia?"

"Yes." The werewolf's eyes shone fiercely, lack of moonlight or not. "I am only disappointed that I got to bite no one."

Harry snorted. "It wouldn't have done any good this far from the full moon."

"It would have frightened them."

Harry simply nodded. He still didn't like frightening or intimidating other people—it was too close to what the oaths of the Alliance of Sun and Shadow said he was not to do—but it worked far better than bloodshed. It was what he had had to do to Juniper, after all.

"Thank you again," he repeated, and Moody and Tonks gave him faint smiles and turned away. Harry watched them go, shaking his head slightly. They seemed happy to have been included, though they hadn't been able to fire curses, either. It was strange, how little it took to content some of his allies.

Camellia lingered. "You have no message for the packs, _vates_?"

Harry hesitated, then sighed and gave in. "I would like them to watch out," he said. "I think Voldemort will start attacks on London wizards and Muggles soon. The werewolf packs are the best source of information I have to keep watch over them and warn me if something happens, and of course you're powerful in battle."

Camellia snapped her jaws together and bowed her head slightly, eyes and teeth agleam. "It shall be done, _vates._" She turned and loped off. Harry could see a shape moving a few steps down the Hogsmeade road; starlight revealed it as Trumpetflower, a witch and member of the pack who had taken his phoenix song call for Camellia and Apparated her. A moment later, Camellia took her arm, and they were gone.

Harry guided Snape, gently floating, up to the doors of the castle, while examining Peter and Regulus with both magic and questions. Peter seemed shaken, but physically fine. Regulus studied Harry back with an intense, narrow-eyed gaze that Harry didn't like.

"What?" he asked finally.

"There has never been any Black heir with the magical power you have," Regulus murmured, "and never any who dared stand up to the Ministry as effectively and thoroughly as you've done." His teeth, in turn, flashed in a smile. "I was simply thinking how it would make my parents stir if they knew. A halfblood, and a legal heir and not a blood child at that, accomplishing what all of them could not."

Harry snorted. "Your mother already likes me," he said, thinking of the portrait of Mrs. Black that hung in the hall of Grimmauld Place, and then turned to Syrinx. "Would you go to the hospital wing and the Headmistress, Syrinx, please? Tell her I've fetched everyone back and am making sure they're settled comfortably. I'll come and speak with her if she wants me to, but I'd much rather wait until morning."

"I'm sure she'll let you," Syrinx said, touched his shoulder with her hand like a butterfly's motion, and then ran ahead to the castle.

After that, Harry's main task was convincing Snape to stay in his quarters; Peter and Regulus were adult enough to go to their beds and begin sleeping the Veritaserum off. Harry, at last, cheated and asked Snape if he was tired, to which he had to give a truthful answer. Harry gave him a Calming Draught, laid him flat, and even fluffed the pillows, just to complete the outrage.

All the while, his mind hummed along another track. He could not be entirely certain his proposal was welcome, but if it were, it would give him some rest and peace of mind as well as another family—perhaps.

So he finished putting Snape to bed, and then wrote his letter. The climb to the Owlery was long, but Hedwig fluttered over to him the second he came through the door, settling expectantly on his shoulder and nipping at his ear. Harry stroked her for a long moment, bathing in the warmth and scent of her, before he spun his arm and launched her out the window into a sky now free of storm.

He gazed after her for a moment. The darkness was faintly tinged with dawn. Draco would probably be waking from his unbreakable sleep soon, and would want to know what had happened while he was under the influence of the Dreamer's Crown.

Harry only hoped it wouldn't provoke an argument, that they'd gone to the Ministry without Harry using his magic to snap the dream.

_Keep going._

He yawned, dragged a knuckle across his eyes, and then went back to the dungeons and his bed. He might as well snatch the hour or so of sleep he would have before Draco awakened and he had things to do.

SSSSSSSSSSS

It was awful, Connor thought. Solemn and awful.

He walked quietly beside Ron through the private graveyard the wizards of Ottery St. Catchpole had used for generations to bury their dead. It was a tiny plot of land, but it was theirs in ways that had nothing to do with money. Ron had told Connor that he didn't think it _could_ be sold.

And probably not, Connor thought. There was place magic here—or at least he imagined so, from having heard Harry's descriptions of Woodhouse. It paced slowly around them, now and then forming into a solid dust cloud of a creature that looked rather like a camel. It nodded a heavy head at them, and then broke apart and went back to pacing the graveyard.

The headstones in every direction were for the most part plain, with only names and dates, though here and there a poem was carved. Each had a cluster of small red-orange flowers growing near it, probably tended by the place magic. Connor paused when he caught sight of the matched stones that proclaimed the resting places of Fabian and Gideon Prewett, Molly Weasley's twin brothers. They'd been great heroes of the First War, and it had taken five Death Eaters to bring them down.

_One of whom, _Connor thought with a little sigh, _was Lucius Malfoy._ _And now his son is at Percy's funeral._

He gave a half-incredulous glance to the side. It was a miracle, he thought, that Molly Weasley had agreed to let Draco come. But when Harry had asked if he could attend the funeral and give Percy a tribute, Molly had told him to bring whoever he liked. And she had not done anything more than stare when Harry showed up with Draco on one side and Snape on the other.

Draco was behaving himself, at least, Connor thought. He gave quiet, polite condolences to the elder Weasleys, nodded to Bill and Charlie, and kept well out of the way of the twins, Ron, and Ginny. Ron refused to look at him, but that was to be expected.

Percy's coffin lay near the open hole in the grass, ready to be lowered. Only the top third was open, concealing what Ron had told Connor in confidence was the absolute ruin of his lower body, thanks to Indigena Yaxley's thorns. His family filed quietly past, putting in tokens of the love and affection they'd borne for Percy. A baby blanket from Mrs. Weasley's hand, a pair of glasses from Mr. Weasley's, a carved fish from Bill, a Ministry pamphlet from Charlie's. The twins put in something carefully wrapped in parchment, which they let no one see, and then lingered beside the grave, staring at Percy, for longer than anyone else.

Connor waited, and walked forward with Ron and Ginny. Ginny also cradled something wrapped in parchment, which she refused to look up from. Ron had his old wand, the one that had snapped in second year. "He tried to fix it for me," he said simply when he saw Connor looking.

Connor nodded.

He hadn't known Percy well, but he did remember the evening he'd come down from his room in his third year, close to tears of frustration from trying to work out the proper movements of Venus and Mars for Astronomy, and Percy had leapt at the chance to help him. Now knowing what he knew about that year—that Percy had been under pressure from Dumbledore to become a spy at the Ministry—Connor thought Percy had wanted a distraction more than anything else, but it didn't matter. He'd still worked with Connor, patiently, until Connor got it right. And Connor had drawn out a representation of that same equation again, and he tucked it under Percy's left shoulder, next to Ron's wand.

Harry came forward alone, and Draco and Snape faded into the background with careful propriety. Harry put something that briefly caught the sun and flashed gold into the coffin. Connor blinked, wondering what it had been.

Then he stepped back and lifted his voice in the phoenix song.

Connor had only heard a phoenix mourn once before, the night that Harry had lost Fawkes and sent his sadness skirling all around the castle. This was different. Sterner, not quite as sad—Connor didn't think he would ever again hear anything quite as sad as that first requiem—and a salute.

As the song continued, rising and falling in majestic sliding notes along the scales, Connor felt the urge to close his eyes.

And visions of Percy rose in his mind when he did. Percy bent over a book in the Gryffindor common room, lower lip caught between his teeth, lamps gleaming on his glasses. Percy in a corridor in third year, telling Harry in a hushed voice the true state of affairs between him and Dumbledore. Percy behind a desk in Scrimgeour's office, eyes wide as he absorbed his new world, where Connor had never personally seen him. Percy closing in behind Scrimgeour, arms full of paperwork but eyes fierce, ready to protect his leader to the death.

As he had.

And then came the vision of that which Harry had seen five nights ago, with, mercifully, phoenix flames overriding the image of Yaxley's thorns piercing Percy. There was only the fire, the rising symbol of phoenix or firebird, the symbol of Light.

Harry's song died softly back into a pool of honor, and then warbled and faded away. Connor opened his eyes to see him standing with his head bowed, shivering.

_How many requiems will he have to sing, before it's all done? _Connor thought, and shivered himself, and went forward and took his brother in his arms.

Harry made a soft little sound, then clung to him. They walked slowly to the back of the graveyard as Mr. and Mrs. Weasley worked the spells to lower the coffin into the earth. Connor didn't look over his shoulder. This was a private moment for the family, the lowering, though anyone else they permitted might attend the other ceremonies.

Draco met them near the fence, and tried to take Harry away from Connor. Connor subjected him to a glare and hung on. Draco raised an eyebrow, then nodded and leaned on the fence. Snape hovered next to him, gaze simultaneously on Harry and darting around looking for danger.

"They're planting the stone," Draco said suddenly, and Connor knew he could turn around again if he wanted to.

So he did, and saw the great puff of dust that seemed to form when the stone landed, touching the left and the right sides of it with flame, planting the red-orange flowers that endured here for reasons that Connor didn't know but which Ron could probably tell him. He resolved to ask, later.

Harry gave a final, soft trill, and so Percy Weasley was buried.


	3. Intermission: Welcome, Beloved Nephew

Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter!

**Intermission: Welcome, Beloved Nephew**

Indigena sighed and shook herself out from the Apparition, tempted to bid the embrace of the earth around her welcome as she would a sister. She had spent six days negotiating with the vampire hive, trying to make them understand what her Lord wanted from them. It would not have been so difficult—vampires were reasonably intelligent Dark creatures and had worked with humans before—if they hadn't kept forgetting that she wasn't meant as food. And then none of them could draw sustenance from her, even when Indigena stood still and let them bite, because what ran in her veins now was more like sap than blood. Three days had been taken up with the queen testing her, via both drones and workers, to see what would happen when vampires of certain ages and sexes bit her.

_So tiresome_. But she had made the alliance her Lord had desired, and finally won permission to return home.

She was not so happy to think that, in a short time, that alliance would swing into effect, and strike at Harry. But her personal liking for Harry had little to do with it. This was war. Her Lord had asked her to help him negotiate with the vampires. She had done so. She felt vaguely sorry for Harry. On the other hand, if he had done the sensible thing and come to join her Lord, they wouldn't be fighting. Harry was the Dark Lord's magical heir, and he'd been treated appallingly badly by the side of the Light he was supposedly fighting for. Most powerful wizards would see the sense in coming to the side that would let them exercise their magic best, because, for most, their allegiance was first to their magic and second to everything else.

Harry had never been an ordinary powerful wizard, and Indigena knew that. But it was still irritating, after a long day of standing still so fangs could puncture her spongy flesh.

"Come."

Indigena raised an eyebrow. Lucius had entered the Apparition chamber. His eyes were blank, but he looked like himself otherwise. Indigena wondered if her Lord's control over him had deepened, or if he was simply not very successful at fighting said control.

"What is it?" she asked, as she fell into step beside him.

"There is a new arrival our Lord believes will please you," said Lucius, not meeting her eyes. Lord Voldemort had made sure none of them could. It was a mark of respect and honor, but it also made Indigena feel lonely. Not for the first time, she wished her plan hadn't required the killing of Rufus Scrimgeour. At least he was a reasonably intelligent person who had read her words with intensity and feeling.

"Who?" she asked now. She had known her Lord could pursue other Death Eaters, as long as they bore the Dark Mark and had hatred in their souls, but she was not aware of any whose presence she greatly desired.

"There," said Lucius. They had reached the throne room, and he nodded ahead of him. Indigena followed his gaze, and her breath caught in her throat.

She recognized the young man kneeling before her Lord. Of _course_ she did. How could she not? This was Feldspar Yaxley, the son of her sister Peridot, who had served the Dark Lord during the First War and then run away, refusing to even acknowledge that he had been a Death Eater. His honor debt had obligated Indigena to go into service and take the Dark Mark on her own arm when Voldemort came to her family.

And now he had been called back. Of course he had. Feldspar was full of childish hatreds he had never shed.

Indigena felt her mouth stretching in a smile as she crossed the distance between them in a few heartbeats. If she could not have the pleasure of conversing with an equal or serving a Lord she genuinely liked, at least she could have the pleasure of tormenting the person who'd been responsible for her predicament.

"Ah, Indigena," said her Lord, the snake turning its eyes to follow her. She saw Feldspar stiffen at the sound of her name. "I believe you owe a certain kind of debt to my newest servant."

"I do indeed," said Indigena, and then Feldspar turned to stare up at her, swallowing sickly. He had green eyes like his mother, and the same lack of good sense in them. They were circled by thick shadows. It cheered Indigena, a little, to know he had been suffering the same nightmares the others had. He deserved it far more than Lucius or Hawthorn Parkinson had. Not only was he a traitor, like them, he was also an idiot, and Indigena found stupidity unforgivable.

Then he made it worse. He tried to smile.

"Hullo, aunt," he chirped, as if they had just parted at teatime the other day. "How have you been?"

"Killing things," said Indigena. "Specifically, assassinating the Minister."

Feldspar's chin quivered, but he tried to keep up with the game, for a moment. "Ah, y-yes, I h-heard about that." He attempted a smile. He shouldn't have. It looked worse than nothing on his face. "Was it fun?"

"It was not," said Indigena, and glanced at her Lord. "May I take him into another room, my Lord, and explain the rules of things to him?"

Her Lord waved a hand, the snake dancing faster and faster with amusement. Indigena smiled and walked past Feldspar, motioning for him to follow. When it seemed that he might not, she shot out one of her thorns and snagged it through his hair. Then he had to follow closely and quickly, unless he wanted to stumble along in undignified misery.

In the prisoner's chamber, she released him and spun, using another tendril to knock him into the wall. Feldspar fell back with a yelp his mother would be ashamed to hear, and then sat down on his arse. Indigena curled her lip, fighting the urge to lash out and let her thorns or her rose have him. That death would be too quick, and nor did she want to physically torture him as she had Rosier, unless she was doing it at her Lord's order to test some new species of plant. She would mentally torture and taunt him instead, by telling him the truth. That was much better.

"Do you know," said Indigena softly, "that you are indirectly responsible for the Minister's assassination and my Lord's Second War?"

"I am n-not!" Feldspar's face was flushed. He was good at defending his perspective when he believed himself in the right, Indigena thought clinically. She would give him that. _Such a shame he could not think of his honor in the same way as his martyr complex._

"You are," Indigena goaded him. "If you had not fled, I would never have been compelled to join our Lord in order to fulfill the honor debt. I would not have aided him in several of his battles within the last year and a half, and I am not ashamed to say that my presence made a difference many times. I would not have broken into Tullianum to free the Death Eaters hidden there; my Lord would have had to find someone else to do that, and a hard time he would have of it—"

"And little good that did!" Feldspar spat, clenching his fists. "They all _d-died_, didn't they? On the Midsummer battlefield?"

"Why, yes, they did," said Indigena, and smiled at him. "So you are responsible for their deaths as well."

He spluttered. Indigena paid no attention. Her nephew might have had the sense to be proud of his—accomplishments—if he were really a Dark wizard. But though he had taken the Mark, it was for boyish reasons, and he had not fulfilled the requirements of the position of Death Eater as he should have. Indigena Yaxley had found Bellatrix Lestrange _personally_ disgusting, but her honor had been impeccable. She had gone to Azkaban for her Lord and never denied what she was. Feldspar had run, when he knew honor required him to give up his freedom or his life, and hidden in the arms of a too-indulgent mother.

Indigena sighed at the thought of her sister Peridot. _One sister I have relentless as the sea, and one that changes at every wind that blows. I suppose I am the golden mean. However, no one asked me if I wanted to be. And we should never have let Peridot shelter him from this. _

"You are responsible for everything since then," Indigena repeated patiently. "Our Lord's recovery of strength, and the Minister's death." She paused, studying Feldspar, wondering if what he most feared had changed since she saw him last. She had refused contact with him for years, so her own honor would not be tainted. "Chaos," she whispered.

"No," he whimpered. "Oh, no."

"Oh yes," Indigena pointed out, and leaned back against the wall, one root tethering her there. The earth poured strength into her, held her upright, made her feel at home. "I know that you wanted a quiet life, Feldspar, with peace all around you and nothing to bother you. And, thanks to your own actions, you will never have that again. Either you go to death among the Death Eaters or you—" She paused, then snorted. "There _is_ no other choice, really."

Her sister's son was a coward; whatever little strength or pride or honor he'd had had been spent in the First War, within days of joining their Lord. And now he knew he was going to die in this second one, probably all the faster for being so weak.

Indigena waited patiently until he finished vomiting, then said, "My Lord will not let you go. Death is your only freedom." She let her left hand rest on his head in a parody of a blessing. Her thorny rose, the same one that had killed Scrimgeour, strained to sink its thorns into him, but Indigena resisted the temptation. _No, let him look full in the face of what he earned for himself. _"Welcome, beloved nephew."

She spun, and strode back towards the throne room. Her Lord would have work for her, so this diversion could not take too long. She was his lieutenant now, and that meant she was in charge of negotiating with people other than the vampires, and writing letters to those wizards who might support him.

She passed Hawthorn on the way, sleeping exhausted on a pile of blankets in a corridor. She'd fought their Lord's control again, apparently, and he had cast her back into the deepest toils of hatred as a punishment. Indigena, heart aching with pity, knelt down and smoothed her hair.

Hawthorn opened an amber eye, and looked at her, and snarled weakly. Hatred flamed in her gaze. The stronger the loathing grew, Indigena knew, the more she would belong to their Lord. And with Indigena and Lucius near, the murder of her daughter and her betrayal and imprisonment in Tullianum would continually rebound on her mind.

"I hate you," Hawthorn whispered.

"Shhhh," Indigena whispered, petting. "I know, sister. I know."

_Honor will have its due, _she thought, meeting Hawthorn's gaze and thinking of all the traitors, past and present, who had come home to her Lord or would in the future. _They may try to flee from it, but they cannot run forever._


	4. The Future All Afire

Thanks for the comments on the last chapter!

**Warning: Gore. **

**Chapter Three: The Future All Afire**

It was a good thing Draco wasn't wearing the Dreamer's Crown tonight, he thought. Otherwise, he wouldn't have awakened even when Harry abruptly began trying to claw his face off.

"_Harry!_" he snapped, and rolled over on top of him, pinning his hands to the bed. They were about the same size by now, but he was still heavier than Harry was. With a little effort, he managed to arrange things so that Harry's hands were trapped by his knees. Then he sat back and stared. "What in the name of Merlin—"

And then he saw Harry's scar open and red, a running wound, and his mouth open in a scream that let no sound pass his lips, and his heart lurched, and he dropped straight down, chest to chest. For a moment, fear threatened to overwhelm him. _Voldemort's trying to possess Harry again, he's hurting him—_

Fear wouldn't do, though. Harry needed him, and that meant he couldn't collapse into someone else's arms and wait for the rescue to commence. He needed to be the strong one, and he knew what he could do.

Draco took a deep breath, then tilted Harry's head up. Harry's eyes were shut so tightly that Draco couldn't see a hint of either pupil or iris. But he didn't strictly need line-of-sight contact for this any more.

He let go and bounded into Harry's mind, his possession gift spreading around him in a net that would hopefully be enough to counter whatever he found there.

It wasn't, though.

Visions spun and dizzied him, people dying, flames exploding, shrill screams ringing out, and _pain_, such pain that Draco wanted to collapse screaming himself. But he didn't. He clung to the slender thread of knowledge that it was Harry seeing this, not him, and that he had to pull him out of it somehow, before one or both of them were lost. If it went on like this, it would be both; Harry would die, trapped in his own mind, and Draco would follow him into death.

He worked furiously, diving through the shards of the vision, seeking the dreamer under the dream. He found traces of Harry here and there, recognizing them by the familiar feeling of his emotions—guilt and regret and self-loathing were particularly prominent, but he found some anger, too, and some fear—and dragged them back towards the surface. Halfway there, Harry joined him in a surge, recovering consciousness enough to help. Draco let go with a relieved gasp, and then jumped straight out of his head, back into his own body.

He opened his eyes to meet Harry's, and stared. Those eyes looked like Owen had told him, in confidence, they'd looked in the Ministry: so mad with rage that Draco was instantly glad not to be on the opposing side. Reluctantly, he had to respect Minister Juniper a bit more, that he hadn't backed down the moment he was confronted with this.

"What is it?" Draco asked quietly.

"Two-pronged attack," Harry said back, efficiently throwing himself out of bed and pulling his robes on. Argutus, who'd been curled on top of his trunk, thumped to the floor as the lid flew back and the clothes came flying to Harry, but Harry didn't answer his sleepy hiss. "One in Muggle London." He lifted his head and stared towards the spot in the dungeon wall where a window would have been if they'd been aboveground. "One in the Forbidden Forest."

Draco jerked.

"The wards are weaker against nonhuman attackers, since the Forest has so many nonhumans living in it and the wards have to make space for them," Harry murmured. "And that's what he has. Vampires," he added, at Draco's confused expression.

"But he must have offered them fantastic sums—" Draco began, confused. Vampires were proud and individualistic creatures who couldn't be persuaded with anything so simple as an offer of blood. They often had their own standards of what was moral or beautiful or right or an acceptable risk, and would argue with any wizard negotiators until they met that price. It was no wonder the Ministry had such trouble controlling them; the Ministry worked by sameness, and vampires refused to be the same. Unless—

"_Shit_," Draco said, in a voice that his mother would have called unnecessarily loud. "Harry, he doesn't have a—"

"A hive," said Harry, seemingly intent on interrupting Draco's words as well as his thoughts. "Yes he does, Draco."

Draco cursed again, though this time he didn't even remember what he said, and scrambled to pull on his own clothes.

Wizards dealt with vampires individually because of their standards, and because of what happened when they were together in one place. Allow a hundred or so vampires to gather, and suddenly they started taking on roles that were more reminiscent of an ant colony than a group of humans. The females became workers, increasingly aggressive against anything that was not a vampire. The males became drones, likely to rape anything they could get their hands on as well as drain it of blood.

And if enough of them stayed together for a year or more, they would raise up a queen, and she would want to establish a nest, and that meant the end of civilization for roughly a hundred miles in every direction from her home base.

"Harry," Draco said abruptly, lifting his head, his own eagerness to deny this was real coming into play. "Do you _know_ these visions are happening? I mean, Voldemort might have sent them to distract you, or just hurt you." It hadn't escaped his notice that Harry was moving more carefully than usual. The spells and other damage the dream victims had taken was affecting him.

"I'm going to look at the Forest," said Harry calmly. "Easy enough to see from here. And as for London—" He tapped his wrist, and spoke into the blaze of phoenix song that followed. "Remus?"

Draco scowled. His feelings towards the traitorous werewolf were not much more charitable than Snape's, but Harry had at least retained him as a contact, and right now a blurred, sleepy voice was answering him.

"Harry?"

"Voldemort is attacking in Muggle London," Harry said calmly. "Or, at least, so my scar claims."

"Where?" Lupin's voice was sharper now. Draco supposed werewolves would have to be good at waking up easily, so that they could run when wizard-led hunts came after them. He still wished that Harry could have called upon one of the other packs, but perhaps Hawk's pack was more central to London, or some such nonsense. Draco didn't know much about werewolf geography. Nor did he care to.

"I'm not sure," said Harry. "That's why I need you to pass the message. And, Remus—it's a vampire hive."

A low growl was the only answer. Draco gave a reluctant nod. If someone _had_ to fight vampires, werewolves were the best choice, he supposed. Their beasts made them immune to the charm and compulsion that vampires usually used on their victims; the wolf threw off that kind of control, being a creature of compulsion itself. And werewolves had a strength that matched or surpassed that of a vampire. They would hardly hold still for the bite.

_And_, said part of Draco's old education, _if they die in battle, they won't cost the wider wizarding community as much._

Draco winced a bit and did what he could to suppress that line of thinking. He wasn't sure he believed them any longer, those thoughts about werewolves and Mudbloods and the rest, and until he was sure, they were embarrassing to voice.

"I will inform Hawk," Lupin said.

"Thank you, Remus," Harry said, and cut the communication spell. Then he stood and nodded to Draco. "I'm going to the Forbidden Forest. Do you want to join me?"

Draco's mouth dried at the thought of going among a vampire hive—this was what nightmares, not just bad stories, were made from—but he had said that he would follow Harry into battle. His possession gift might protect him from the compulsion of their eyes, and, if that didn't work, he could wield a weapon to which not even vampires were immune. He reached for his wand, stood, and nodded. "I hope you aren't about to dash out with only the two of us," he said, with all the sarcasm he could use given the solemnity of the moment.

Harry shook his head. "I'm on my way to inform the Headmistress first, so that she can raise the wards. Then I'll gather those who can and want to fight with us." He was informing them even as they left the dungeons, Draco saw, calling through the blaze of phoenix song to see if they could arrive in time.

Owen joined them before they were fully down the stairs into the common room. Draco nodded a greeting to him, but his thoughts were elsewhere. _Before, Harry's always been frantic if there was an attack like this on Hogwarts grounds, eager to get out there as soon as possible. I wonder what's changed?_

SSSSSSSSSSS

It took an enormous effort to hold himself in check, but Harry knew it had to be done. He would gain no lives back if he moved too fast. His muscles trembled and ached with the aftereffects of the visions, still, and he was beginning to suspect that Snape was right, that he _must_ shut down the link to Voldemort at any cost.

But he had built Occlumency shields around his scar in the last few days, and Voldemort had torn through them as if they were made of feathers.

His head was full of death, and his body was full of what it felt like to be cut apart and bitten and compelled to walk slowly towards an intruder while behind him his family watched in horror. He jumped, soaring above them and the impulse to hurry, hurry, _hurry_, and instead spoke to the people he knew would want to come with him: Connor, Zacharias, Peter, Ron, Ginny, and others in Hogwarts who were of the Light and could wield the spells of the Light. He spoke to Regulus, too, but this was mostly a fight for Light wizards.

Light purebloods could wield spells of fire and light with more effectiveness and power than Dark wizards could muster, their inherited allegiance brightening their blood. And this close to Midsummer, their appeals to the Light were also likely to have more power. Against vampires, those were the strongest weapons.

Others he sent towards the fight in London, explaining briefly what was happening. He expected _someone_, at least, to refuse.

No one did.

Syrinx had joined them by the time they reached the Headmistress's office, and Harry told McGonagall what was happening, watching her mouth tighten in a thin line. She would have wanted to join them on the battlefield, Harry knew, and they could have used her. But there were still children in the school, as the term ended in two days, and she had to stay here and protect them—and herself. She was not completely recovered from Snape's attack yet, Harry knew.

"I understand, Harry," she said, when he finished. "And the wards are confirming movement in the Forest, though no enormous attacks as yet. My guess is that Voldemort sent you conjured images, not visions of what is actually happening."

Harry nodded, a bit reassured. "Then it might be a trap, but we'll be prepared to meet it. I think he expected me to simply rush in—"

And then his vision exploded into fiery darkness again, and he went to one knee. He could feel death shuddering all through his limbs, the fangs in his neck draining and drawing his blood, the arms clamped around his chest with a strength he could not break no matter how he struggled. He caught a blurred glimpse of hooves, and knew he was watching the death of a centaur.

_Of course, _Harry thought, himself somewhere beyond the pain, thanks to Lily's training. _That's why he's sending them to the Forest. _Centaurs and vampires had a long-standing argument.

He managed to open his eyes, and jump over the fierce ache in his throat, and nod to the Headmistress. 'They're here," he said quietly. "They just killed the centaur called Bone." His voice was raspy with suppressing the urge to scream. "And it's a hive."

_We must pray they do not have the queen with them._

In his head, Voldemort laughed, and flung more pain. Harry struggled to keep his feet, impatiently. He was needed in this battle, not collapsing on the floor.

SSSSSSSSSSS

Connor felt determined, as he came down the steps from the sixth-year boys' room in Gryffindor Tower. His mind ran through every Light and fire spell that he could remember learning, including the ones that Snape had taught him in their dueling sessions together.

He was _waiting_ for the fear, for the sensation that should have overtaken him the moment he knew they would be battling vampires.

There was nothing like fear inside him. The closest was the deep conviction that the vampires should not have come near Hogwarts at all—sorrow, perhaps, and a bit of pity for the hive.

He turned when he heard Ron stumbling along behind him; he had heard Harry contact him, but hadn't been sure Ron would join in, given Percy's death. Surely his parents wouldn't want another of their sons to risk his life?

And then he saw Ron's flaming eyes, and remembered that he'd turned seventeen on the first of March and technically wasn't under his parents' control any more, and shut his mouth and bowed his head.

"Where's Ginny?" Ron asked as they left through the portrait together. "I know Harry would call her."

"Perhaps wondering what your mother would say?" Connor shrugged. He'd been around Molly and Arthur Weasley enough that he'd been forced to admit, reluctantly, that they weren't perfect. They _did_ treat Ginny differently than the rest of their children, and though some of it was clearly because she was the youngest, the rest was clearly because she was a girl. Ginny might wonder if it was worth going into danger when her parents would yell at her about it afterwards, as had been the case when she joined Harry's rebellion in Woodhouse.

"She'll be here," Ron muttered, and then the sound of flying footsteps came from behind them. Both Ginny and Hermione were hurrying to catch up. And behind them, somewhat to Connor's surprise, came Neville.

"Neville?" he asked gently. Ginny might not care, and he was Harry's brother, but Neville was still underage and under the thumb of a powerful witch, his grandmother, who didn't tend to let him do risky things.

The other boy caught his breath with a gulp and a gasp, and jerked his head as he replied, "I want to do this. They need me on the battlefield, don't they?"

"We do," said Ron bluntly. "Everyone we can get. It's a vampire hive, Connor," he added, catching his eye. "Hundreds of wizards at a time have fought them and died. I know that Harry has his magic, but that might not be enough to make a difference if he goes against them alone. One more wand, one more body, could. And Neville's practiced with us."

Connor nodded. He had heard the audible strain in his brother's voice through the communication spell, and it was true that Neville was a powerful wizard, when he allowed the emotions that mostly gave his magic its strength through.

"Very well," he muttered. "Let's go." And then they were all running down the stairs as fast as they could, headed for the front doors where Harry had told them to assemble.

Harry was waiting there, with Zacharias Smith and a small contingent of other students from Hufflepuff, and even some Ravenclaws. Connor felt a small stab in the heart when he realized that Padma Patil wasn't among them. The Patils' parents had called both her and Parvati home a few days after Snape's attack on McGonagall, and still hadn't let them come back. Luna stood among the Ravenclaws looking more lost than usual, and Connor stifled the urge to go to her and pat her shoulder. He'd almost got used to Parvati's being gone, but this was different, to be reminded of her absence via Padma's.

But Harry was speaking now. Connor turned his attention to him, and frowned. Blood streaked Harry's face, the trails ending at his scar. His eyes were alive, passionate with fury and other emotions, and Connor remembered the time ten nights ago when he had been all that kept Harry from surrendering to those emotions and going to Voldemort. He resolved to stick to his brother's side and tackle him to the ground the moment he grew wings or started paying more attention to the burning of his scar than the battle.

"There's a hive in the Forbidden Forest," Harry said. "Drones and workers both. No sign of a queen yet." There were moans of relief from almost everyone present; they knew what havoc a queen could cause. The only one who was silent, in fact, Connor thought, was Draco, who stood with his hand locked on Harry's shoulder and gaze fastened on his face as if cursed there. "They've killed Bone and a few other centaurs. They're killing every living thing they can reach. Some of them, like the Many hive, are fighting back, but it won't be easy. Use as many Light and fire spells as you can, both so that you can see and so that you can kill them."

"You don't want to leave them alive and negotiate with them like the _vates_ you are?" came Zacharias Smith's drawl from the side.

Harry gave him a look that shut him up. Since he was joined by glares from Peter Pettigrew and Henrietta Bulstrode, Connor was faintly surprised that the arrogant prat didn't go over backwards.

"Keep together," said Harry, not bothering to answer. "The vampires will try to separate us. They'll also use compulsion. _Don't_ meet their eyes. Don't listen to their voices." He lifted a hand, and a low wind began to blow around them, soft with music. "I'll use this to try and keep you from hearing what they say, but I can't promise it will work, especially if we wander apart from one another." He raked the group with a quick glance, and then snapped orders to rearrange themselves. It was by skill level, Connor quickly saw; Zacharias was in front of Neville, and Ginny, who had survived the Midsummer battle but still knew relatively few battle spells since she was a fifth-year, went towards the back.

Harry himself, of course, took point, and Draco was right behind him, and the professors who were coming. Connor noticed one obvious absence. "Where's Snape?" he hissed into Harry's ear as he took the place beside Draco; Harry was wise enough to know that trying to send Connor anywhere away from him right now wouldn't work.

"Too wounded to join us," said Harry, and then faced the enormous doors and spoke softly to his left wrist. "We're ready, Headmistress."

The doors flung open, the wards fell down so they could cross from safety into danger, and Harry led them out.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

His head hurt like fire and thunder and fury.

That was actually the worst of it, Harry thought, rather than the sensations of death and torture that Voldemort kept transferring to him, or the concern for those who followed him into battle. He was used to that kind of pain, and the wizards and witches who accompanied him outside now, young as most of them were, had freely chosen this. He _had_ to respect that choice and concentrate on leading the fight instead of worrying about them, or he might as well give over the title to _vates_ right there.

But the pain in his head was very hard to defeat, because it combined physical anguish from the scar and mental anguish from where Voldemort was shredding his Occlumency shields and trying to snag a hook in his soul. Yet sitting out of the battle was hardly an option, not with vampires on the run.

_Do you think you will win this battle? _Voldemort asked him, and then the mad laughter started up again, so loud that Harry didn't think he had to worry about hearing a vampire's voice.

He shook his head, forcing his concentration forward again, and felt Draco at his right and Connor at his left. Lifting his eyes, he saw they were almost to the trees. They swayed madly, though there was little wind among them this night, and Harry could hear the sounds of struggle through his ears now instead of his mind. The centaur herd had made a stand against them, and around them swarmed thestrals and Many cobras and Runespoors and other creatures of the Forest, doing what they could to stop the intruders to their home without being compelled or exsanguinated.

Stepping into the darkness without the keen senses that guided the magical creatures was madness for a human, though. Harry held out his hand, and, with only a single cynical thought for what Juniper would think of him, a supposedly Dark wizard, using Light magic, shouted, "_Apricus!_"

Light burst overhead, golden light deadening the dark, leaping from and surrounding a single intense point of white fire that Harry set to hover above the Forest. The stars paled before it, and the waxing moon combined its light with it in odd ways. Harry could have done more if he had sent all his magic into the radiance, but he dared not do that, for the sake of fighting the vampires and the sake of fighting off Voldemort, who kept circling around his soul, trying to take him.

Another burst of pain through his scar nearly sent him to the ground, but Harry thought he knew how to ignore that, now. The point was to think about what would happen if he allowed himself to collapse, and that was unthinkable, so he stayed on his feet. His head burnt like the point of light. Well, if it had to burn, it would burn.

He did derive some satisfaction from seeing a worker, compelled by hunger, dart towards them, long dark hair streaming behind her, hands raised and curved into claws. She crossed through a patch of golden light, and with a hissing sound, her skin began to dissolve. Blackness spread along it such as Harry had seen trace the edge of burnt parchment, though her skin smelled neither like roasting flesh nor like paper, but like spoiled milk. She ducked back into the shadows with a shriek. Harry knew the shriek would bring other vampires running; it was how the hive communicated.

He lifted his head, told himself that exultant dark triumph _was_ far enough from hatred not to give Voldemort a hold on his soul if he felt it, and shouted, "Burn them! Don't meet their eyes, don't listen to their voices! Don't let them get a hold on you! Strike from a distance! Fight back to back!"

Then he plunged into the Forest, Draco on one side and Connor on the other, and heard battle yells mingle with the music he'd set flowing.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Ron knew it wasn't vampires that had killed Percy. He was perfectly aware of that. If someone had sat him down and asked him about vampires, he would have pointed to a picture of one and admitted that that was not the picture of the Thorn Bitch, and the Thorn Bitch was responsible for Percy's death.

But the vampires were the first attackers he had seen, the first creatures against whom he'd had a chance to raise his wand in battle, since Percy died. And Ron had a lot of rage traveling back and forth under his skin in a vortex of red.

He was glad, oh he was glad, when a drone reached towards him from under the protective boughs of a tree. He spun, Harry and Moody's training firmly in mind, and set his feet, because otherwise he could trip. Root to the left, stones to the right, and he stood in a small hollow. He didn't want to be driven backwards.

"_Aduro!_" he barked, and his magic snatched at the fire and set it blazing through his veins, through his Declaration to the Light, through his family's tradition of serving the Light, and what came out of his wand was as hot as dragonfire.

The drone's hair began to blaze first. Ron laughed as he watched lines of blackness creep down the face, and did it while avoiding the compelling eyes. One hand lifted to beat at the fire, and an inhuman shriek that made Ron's ears bleed arose, but the flames leaped neatly to the vampire's fingers instead, and consumed its nails like fine wine. Ron laughed again, feeling very nearly drunk himself.

Someone slammed him from the side, bearing him a tottering step forward, where his foot caught the root and he fell. Rolling, trying to regain his balance, Ron felt an incredibly strong arm curl around his neck and haul him up, and then the first icy touch of fangs at his throat from a worker.

He still had his wand, though. And he still had his rage. He'd lost his brother, and nothing would ever assuage that pain, but something could come close to making up for it.

Ron hurled all his magic and all his strength behind the next spell, which was not one he'd trained in, but one he'd heard of and read about.

"_Solstitialis_!"

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Draco had two things to do: keep an eye on Harry, and kill vampires. Both of them, he thought, were simple enough.

For the first, he curled an arm around Harry's shoulders and hauled him up when he stumbled, spelled the flowing blood from his eyes with a quick Headshake Jinx, stood back-to-back with him when Harry needed an anchor in the physical world, and in general reminded him that they required him, here, in the Forest, and he didn't have permission to vanish into the mental battle with Voldemort.

For the second, he had limited options—in fact, only one that he absolutely knew would work. Individual vampires were highly resistant to most forms of Dark magic, since it was Dark Arts that set them walking about in the first place. That resistance increased when they came together in a hive. Draco knew from the first time his eyes scraped past a worker's and he felt the temptation to go to her that his possession gift wouldn't protect him from them. And he simply wasn't as skilled with fire or Light spells as other Light wizards, especially not now, near Midsummer, when the power of the wild Dark drew back and the sun prevailed.

So he waited until he saw a vampiress coming for him, springing lightly from branch to branch, and aimed his wand, and braced himself for the pull of magic he'd need to experience, and spoke.

"_Avada Kedavra._"

The green light cut the flickering, flame-enhanced darkness like a foxfire sun. It touched the vampiress's chest, and Draco heard, as if from a distance, Lupin's voice reciting what they'd learned about vampires in third year. _Powerful enough curses do not precisely kill the vampire, but leach the Dark magic that makes them able to maintain a semblance of life._

The Killing Curse faded, and the body tumbled through the branches to land with a splat on the ground. Draco turned away.

Other members of the hive had seen what that worker had done, though, and were coming at them from above, now, swarming up the trees with immense speed and dropping on their heads. Draco cursed and ducked a falling body, pulling Harry with him. They landed in an untidy heap, and he rolled over to see a drone already scrambling up. His body was naked, his eyes wild, and Draco knew that if he grabbed someone, he could rape that person in instants.

"_Curis solis_!" Harry's voice shouted from beside him.

The Sun Spear Spell, Draco thought, and then he saw the golden-red weapon flash past the corner of his eye, hurled through Harry's fingers. It burned a hole straight through the drone, cauterizing the flesh as it passed, and he fell in the middle of a shriek. Draco shuddered, stood, and hauled Harry up after him.

And then Harry had the nerve to pull him around so Draco could see his eyes—at least, as much as it was possible to notice eyes in the flashes of light and fire and darkness, and the continual flow of blood from Harry's scar—and ask, "Are you sure that you can continue to manage the Unforgivables?"

"Damn it," Draco hissed, sounding, he knew, rather like a vampire himself in that moment. "_Yes, I can. _And it's the best weapon I have, and I'm going to use whatever weapon works. Now, can we _please_ get on in our battle?"

Harry's mouth quirked, and stayed that way as he swung a bright sword of fire over Draco's head, beheading a leaping worker. Draco regretted they were in the middle of this battle, or, more precisely, that it took battles like this to bring magic that powerful out of Harry; he would have liked to explore what that smile could lead to in a more peaceful situation.

Then the ground shook.

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry felt the moment someone cast the Solstice Summons. His breath caught, and a current of cold, solid air seemed to surge past him. It was not air, he knew, but time. The Solstice Summons reversed or sped up time in a certain small area around the caster, and created Midsummer in that space.

This close to Midsummer itself, it meant—

Welling sunlight struck through the trees. Harry was forced to lift his left hand and shield his eyes. Dying screams answered from every direction, overwhelming his music and the constant low mutter of calling vampires and the crackle of flames and Voldemort's laughter in his head.

The vampires in the immediate clearing had all retreated or died by the time Harry could see again. They did not want to face the Light itself, and that was what the Solstice Summons had brought forth, if only for a moment.

Hooves sounded in response, and Harry turned hard, to find himself face-to-chest with a white centaur he had never seen before. The centaur clashed to a stop, forelegs lashing dangerously close to Harry's face for a moment. He bore a spear in one hand stained with dark rivulets and what Harry sincerely hoped wasn't a vampire's heart still clinging to it.

"_Vates_, you have come," the centaur snorted, and then slid to one knee and bowed his head. Even his hair was pale, a near match for Draco's. "You must hurry. They have cornered the herd."

Harry bit his tongue on the impulse to say that Voldemort hadn't shown him that. Half of the things that Voldemort showed him were probably false, anyway. He took a step towards the centaur.

_Do you really think so? _Voldemort's voice was in his head again, worse than a Dementor's, a red spike that hammered straight in through an ear and out again. Harry was surprised not to hear the sound of his head tearing open. _See this, then, Harry. You could have prevented their deaths if you went to London instead of choosing the Forest._

And Harry saw several people lying still, the dark puncture wounds in their necks gaping to the air, their bodies ripped limb from limb and left as cold, mangled flesh, without a trace of the blood, because the attacking vampires would have drunk it all. Two were adult women, one was a teenage girl, and the other two were boys, who might have been the same age as the girl or younger. Werewolf howls cut the air outside, and snarls and sounds of battle, but for this family, who might have been either wizards or Muggles, it was too late.

Harry knew sickness was coming, and he leaned over and vomited as best as he could, blind with the vision and incapable of aiming the foulness. He felt Draco's arm around him, pulling him upright, his voice low and soothing as he urged him on, and the centaur saying his title in alarm.

_I have to get past this. I have to. I made the choice because I couldn't have Apparated to Muggle London; I didn't know where the attack was happening, and by the time I arrived it might have been too late for them._

But he could have Apparated to a werewolf pack's safehouse and searched with them from there, the voice of his conscience answered.

_Of course I could have. And then more people here would have died than already have. _

Every choice cost something.

Harry blinked hard, and this time the blindness came from blood and not the vision that Voldemort had implanted. "I'm all right," he said, and shook his head angrily at Draco's doubtful face. "I'll be all right." That was probably closer to the truth, but no matter; the simple truth was that he couldn't leave this battlefield, not now. The vampires were coming slowly back, creeping from in between the trees now that the Solstice Summons hadn't been repeated for a few minutes. Harry could hear them crooning of the delights to be found in their arms, whispering stories of dark tunnels and blood and soft slippery flesh. Merlin knew how many of the people who had accompanied him from inside Hogwarts were already dead.

The sorrow and the pain and the anger built in him, and suddenly Harry _did_ think that he knew a tactic that would take out the vampires, and he was so angry now that the battle with Voldemort could not keep his magic or his mind occupied.

The Dark Lord felt that and began to struggle more strongly. Harry closed his eyes and refused to see anything he did not want to see. Instead, his hand rose, and Draco clasped it.

"Hold me here," Harry whispered.

"What are you—"

Harry covered his own eyes with his free hand, tracing the shapes of them, the contours, the lashes, making them known to his fingers. Then he clenched his hand and exhaled into it. He didn't know a spell that would mimic the effect he wanted, so he was having to lean on his magic and fly with it, tell it what he desired and let the surge of pure power through him answer, instead of shielding his mind with an incantation.

He breathed, pushing magic and will through his hand, and what came out was light.

A single ball of burning, blinding light was to hover in front of everyone in the Forest who had human eyes. Harry gave himself to that, completely. Humans, vampires, and centaurs it would cover, but not Runespoors and the others; their eyes were too different. He forced himself not to worry about that. He leaned forward and gave as much effort into the push as he would into rolling off a boulder that had fallen on Draco and crushed his legs.

He felt the moment when things suddenly got easier, and light and Light rushed through him. He gasped slightly, opening his eyes, then flinched and closed them again because of the pain of the glaring white ball in front of him.

Scream after scream after scream rang through the trees in answer, and Harry knew the vampires were probably retreating back into the shadows to avoid the balls of light. But they were made to hover in front of someone's eyes, and that meant they would follow anywhere their targets went and penetrate any barriers. The vampires could retreat underground, or Apparate, and still the light would follow.

_Killing them all_.

Harry felt regret about that, the same way he did about not being in London for the Muggle family. Vampires, individually, were intelligent creatures. He could have negotiated with them if he caught them alone. But, caught in the endless surging drive to establish a nest and scatter enough blood on the ground to sustain their queen and the young she would bear, they would not have listened.

_Unless you separated them off from one another…_

The best ideas always came too late, Harry thought as he sagged to the ground, the outflow of magic leaving him dizzy and light-headed. He felt someone crouch down beside him, and then the twine of many small bodies around him, their scales sliding up and down his skin like pebbles. Harry smiled and relaxed. He had felt them before, and knew what they were.

"What news?" he asked, making sure to visualize a snake to himself so the words would come out in Parseltongue.

"_The vampires are running,_" said the snake who was speaking for the Many at the moment. By the sound of it, she was around his neck. Harry was vaguely amused to note that the word "vampires" in Parseltongue was "those with sharper fangs than we have." "_But we have lost many of our own, and as many dead centaurs lie on the ground as there are trees in the center of the Heart Grove._"

Harry sighed and rose to his feet. "Show me. Are the vampires gone?"

"_Yes._"

Harry ended the spell that made the balls of light hover in front of human eyes, and then blinked his way slowly through his own afterimages. The first person he saw was Connor, who looked extremely disappointed, though he smiled at Harry.

"What's the matter?" Harry asked.

"I could never catch a vampire," Connor said in frustration. "They just—avoided me, like I wasn't worth battling. They went were I wasn't, and they caught prey that wasn't me." His face brightened for a moment. "Did you hear the way that Ron cast the Solstice Summons?" he added. "Wasn't that wonderful?"

"Very wonderful," Harry said with a smile he knew was tired. Voldemort had gone silent in his head. Harry didn't know if that came from the failure of his plans, or if he had simply retreated in frustration. A swift Occlumency exploration revealed no trace of him, but Harry wasn't about to trust that. He replaced what shields he could. In the morning, he would ask Snape for help in strengthening them again. "Let's tend to the dead," he said, and this time the pale centaur scooped him up and set him on his back, Many snakes and all, instead of kneeling down. Draco and Connor followed at the centaur's heels.

Harry did turn his head from side to side as they rode, asking for reports. It seemed that only a few people, Luna among them, had been seriously wounded; the battle had simply been too furious and too short for the vampires to make a good try at killing them all, and many had been in other parts of the Forest, chasing the magical creatures. Harry's mouth tightened nonetheless. He would have to make sure that he visited Luna and the others in the hospital wing later.

His wrist chirruped, which made the Many snakes sway and hiss in surprise; they probably thought a phoenix was singing in the woods. Harry touched his left wrist, just under the curled body of one. "Yes?"

"Harry?" It was Remus's voice, deeply tired. "We did find the attackers, but not before they'd killed. And then we only slew a few vampires before the rest of them vanished. It's as if they decided against making that part of London their nest after all."

_I chose right. I chose right. _Harry could have shouted for relief through his blasted throat. "The attack in the Forbidden Forest was the main one, Remus," he said. "They would have chosen to make their nest here, I think. But they're gone, and luckily without killing everyone here. How many dead in the packs?"

Remus was silent a moment.

"Remus?" Harry asked softly.

"Hawk has fallen," Remus whispered. "My pack is without an alpha. And a few werewolves from Camellia's pack, whom I know you knew. Rose. Trumpetflower. Evergreen."

Harry closed his eyes and let images run through his head. He hadn't known Hawk well or long, but the sturdy werewolf had been a good alpha by all accounts. Trumpetflower had been a nervous, elegant, pretty pureblood witch, who had nevertheless come into the Ministry with him last year when Harry decided to make his fight for the cause of werewolves public. Rose had had a mate, Bavaros, with whom she constantly wrestled.

Evergreen had been the young, extremely wild werewolf who'd bitten a Wizengamot Elder on Loki's command and spent time in Tullianum for it, but he'd also sworn loyalty to Harry, and to Camellia when she became alpha in his place. And he had never done anything like that again, from what Harry knew. Nor would he, unless an alpha commanded it.

_I think he went to his death laughing. _Harry opened his eyes. "Please give them my condolences, Remus," he said quietly. "Tell Camellia I'll speak to her when I can." Since Camellia wasn't a witch, he couldn't use the phoenix song spell to communicate directly with her, and Trumpetflower and Rose had been the only magical werewolves in the pack whom Harry had taught the spell to. "I'll—do what I can as soon as I can." The thoughts of what he needed to do were coming dangerously near overwhelming him again, and now he had to imagine four people he knew, if not well, going bravely to their deaths because he had asked them to.

_Stop_, he told himself forcefully.

"We'll wait, Harry," Remus's voice said, balanced in deep calm. "And patrol London as we need to."

The spell ended. Harry shook his head, and then looked up sharply as the pale centaur trotted up a rise. In front of them lay the herd.

Or what remained of it. There were still living centaurs picking their way among the dead, but the bulks and mounds of the dead were what commanded Harry's attention. The blood gleamed like lakes in the moonlight, but there was less of it than there should have been with gore like this, the results of vampire feeding. Too many hooved legs pointed straight up into the air, and here and there a centaur collected a head torn from a body or a spine torn from a back.

Harry quelled the urge to be sick again, and slid slowly off the centaur who had brought him. "What is your name?" he asked quietly.

"Moon." The white centaur snapped one hoof down. His eyes were a high, bright, pale blue, Harry saw, now that he had the time to look at them in the light of the _Apricus_ charm that still hung overhead. "I will be the leader of the herd, now that Bone is gone."

Harry spent a moment looking at the devastation. Now he could make out the hoofprints of thestrals, and the small broken green bodies of the dead Many, and the bright scales of Runespoors lying still, though now and then a living head lunged weakly upwards into the air beside its two dead brothers. He tried to estimate how long this had taken. A half an hour? Shorter than that?

There was no answer to this, Harry thought tiredly, rubbing one hand across his scar. No way to make up for it. Except by destroying Voldemort.

"We stand with you."

Harry blinked, and looked up at Moon. "What do you mean? I know that you considered me an ally before now."

"And now we have seen what devastation human wars may do." Moon stamped again. "I will become the leader because I read the sun and moon in the way that others do the stars. The sun and the moon tell me that our destiny runs beside the humans' for a time. Not for long in the lives of a herd or the heavens, but for long enough that our fight is yours. You shall have our aid outside the Forest as well as in it, if you will accept that from us." He bent down until his face was only an inch or two away from Harry's, staring at him, waiting.

Harry had to swallow several times before he could nod. "Thank you. Yes. I accept."

He turned to face the battlefield again. There was not much he could do for the dead, any more than for the dead Muggles in London.

But what he could do, he would.

He walked slowly forward to begin cleaning up, his heart feeling as hollow and empty as his head without Voldemort.


	5. Interlude: A Clangor of Voices

Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter!

**Interlude: A Clangor of Voices**

_The Daily Prophet_

_June 9th, 1997_

**_MINISTRY NOW ON WAR FOOTING_**

**_Acting Minister Juniper says 'Hunting He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named' is most important priority_**

_By: Rita Skeeter_

Acting Minister Erasmus Juniper has put the Ministry, and most of wizarding Britain, on a war footing, and avowed his commitment to the struggle with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

The Acting Minister spoke at a small funeral held yesterday for Minister Rufus Scrimgeour, slain by Indigena Yaxley; a Dark Mark was found hovering over the body. The funeral was small so as not to provide a target for forces of the Dark, but Juniper was firm in refusing the suggestion that this meant his administration was afraid.

"We must be cautious to win this war," he said. "Never afraid. We must watch for opportunities to commit our forces in the most advantageous places. But if we let terror take over, then we are doing the work of the Dark for it."

In response to questions about whether he had been arguing with Harry vates, the Acting Minister was noncommittal.

"It's true that we have philosophical disagreements," he said. "I am more strictly of the Light than poor Scrimgeour was, and so he was more accommodating to young Harry. But I have every confidence that we can work together. I do not have any fear that the vates means to embrace the goals of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. This is the time for Light and undeclared wizards to trust each other. He is our mutual animosity, not the old and petty struggles of past times."

The Acting Minister did admit that he intended to pass and strengthen some new edicts as a means of preparing wizarding Britain for the coming crisis, and eventual martial law.

"Certain Dark magic, the most destructive and debilitating kind, is being prohibited," he said. "But that's only natural. If we do not look to the lessons of history, we will only enact them, again and again. We made mistakes in the First War—and I include the Wizengamot, of which I was a member—in such matters as looking away from mistreatment of hostages and making the Unforgivable Curses legal for Aurors. That will not happen again. We will not become what we fight."

The Acting Minister added that he hoped to have more definite answers on his negotiations with the vates by next week.

SSSSSSSS

_**Savior or Menace?**_

_A _Vox Populi _Special Report on the Harry Situation_

_June 12th, 1997_

It is now six days since the assassination of Minister Rufus Scrimgeour at the hands of a Dark agent widely thought to be Indigena Yaxley, and in the time since, we have received disturbing rumors of an attack at Hogwarts that almost killed the Headmistress, and of former Death Eaters returning to their Lord. Also, in that time, Harry vates has made no public statement of his position. It is rumored that he entered the Ministry the night after the Minister's assassination, but what he might have said or done there has been kept quiet.

I conducted a series of interviews with the wizards in my home village, a quiet, sleepy little place in southern Cornwall. We're just an ordinary group of seventy or so families, a good mixture of halfbloods, Muggleborns, and purebloods. Some of us have house elves, some don't. Some of us favor complete freedom for the magical creatures, some don't. Some have long thought of Harry as the Young Hero or the Boy-Who-Lived and thus the best hope for the wizarding world; some haven't. Their voices (left anonymous to encourage the speakers to express themselves with more freedom) make for an interesting medley of opinions on the subject.

One older witch in our village, the daughter of a Muggleborn man and the pureblood witch who ran away from her family to marry him, was quite firm on the subject. "He's always done good for us so far, and for the magical creatures, too. He'll do right until we turn against him, I'd imagine."

A young wizard who left Hogwarts three years ago, and so knew Harry as a student, was more skeptical. "I'd like to think that he'll save us all," he said, "but that's a child's dream, innit? More likely we'll have to join in saving ourselves, and not hide behind one boy's wand. Or hands. I heard that he doesn't even use a wand any more."

A Granian breeder only spat when I asked him. "Oh, yes," he muttered. "He only wants to take our livelihoods, after all, and people only die around him, after all. A fine choice for savior of the world. It's fitting fate chose him to be the savior, though. Fate's a fickle bitch. I remember a time—" And he devolved into personal stories it would not be appropriate to repeat here.

A young witch, not of age to attend Hogwarts yet, was firmly of the opinion that Harry would kill You-Know-Who before the week was out. Her mother was more reserved.

"He might," she said. "All I know that is that he hasn't yet. I would be more impressed if he'd made an open statement about working with the new Ministry, that his commitments didn't collapse when the Minister died, and that we won't have to wait whist the Acting Minister and him fight it out all over again."

A small group of wizards and witches has formed in the village to write letters to Harry, asking him to make a Declaration. They believe he will need the extra power to defeat You-Know-Who, who at the moment is widely believed to be the most powerful wizard in the world.

A similar delegation of young wizards apparently tried to sneak out of their homes and go to Hogwarts, where they would have offered their wands to Harry, but were caught by their parents.

"I don't think anything about this situation is normal," one exasperated mother confided to me after hauling her son back inside by the ear, and effortlessly ignoring his spouted fantasies about wanting to fight at Harry's side. "I only know that I wish it was over with, and that we just knew what he was doing."

SSSSSSSSSS

_The Daily Prophet_

_June 16th, 1997_

_**VAMPIRE ATTACK!**_

**_Vampire hive hits Muggle London and Forbidden Forest_**

_By: Rita Skeeter_

The worst news of the Second War so far has been confirmed: He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has made common cause with a hive of vampires. There were attacks last night on both a Muggle home in London and the Forbidden Forest near Hogwarts. What place they sought for a nesting site seems to have been open to question; it may have been both.

Many Muggles, unfortunately, either witnessed the attack in London or found the torn, exsanguinated bodies when wandering into the scene of the crime, increasing the task for the Ministry's Obliviators.

"It's just one damn task after another, lately," confided Lethe Amarantha, Head of the Obliviator Office. "We keep receiving word of Muggles seeing and remembering things from our world that they shouldn't. This may be You-Know-Who's secondary tactic: to expose our world to the Muggles via his attacks and so incite them to strike back at us just like they did three hundred years ago."

Word is that Harry vates and several companions turned back the vampire attack in the Forbidden Forest, but not before a high cost in magical creature (and perhaps human) lives. Someone fought the vampires in London as well, but Madam Amarantha said they had all vanished before the Obliviators arrived.

"Whoever they are, we're bloody grateful to them," she added.

Not everyone was as grateful; a few wizards living near the Muggle family that was killed expressed fears that they were the real targets, and some resentment that the vates chose to attend to the Forbidden Forest instead of coming to help save lives in London.

"I know he doesn't mean it this way," said Flora Johnson, a halfblood witch who has made her home among Muggles for several decades while she studies the depiction of wizards and witches in their popular culture. "But it does make it seem as if he was choosing magical creatures' lives over human lives, and that's an impression that will do him no favors."

Comment on the matter is as yet unavailable from Harry vates or any magical creature.


	6. Bringing Him to Heel

**Chapter Four: Bringing Him to Heel**

"I do think that you made the right decision," Aurora said, trying to control both the impulse to snap and the blood that hammered in her temples. "We can't afford to regret matters now, sir. We _must_ press ahead with the course we've chosen and do right by our people."

Erasmus paused thoughtfully, his hand hovering over the paperwork in front of him. Aurora hoped she concealed her envy as she watched him. She had never realized that managing the Ministry, or even helping to manage it, would be so bloody _exhausting._ Of course, she had hardly envisioned coming to power after Scrimgeour's assassination, either; the change should have been gentler. But either way, fatigue already bore her down, and yet didn't seem to touch a hair on Erasmus's head.

"If you think so," said Erasmus at last.

"I do," said Aurora firmly. They'd made the decision jointly not to send the _Daily Prophet_ the edict that forbid use of the _absorbere_ gift after Harry's rather dramatic snatching back of his former Death Eaters. It would be too open an attack on Harry and Harry alone. Aurora didn't intend to let Erasmus reconsider that choice now. They had other things to do.

Luckily, when the Acting Minister switched his attention to a new target, he switched _all_ his attention. He picked up the list of tactics Aurora had suggested, and what she'd gathered from their allies, and looked them over carefully. "You think that these will work?"

"In an ordinary time? No." Aurora forced her hand to fall from her temple and curl, relaxed, in her lap. "Now, when Harry foolishly hasn't made a public statement about where exactly he stands with the Ministry? Yes, I do think so. He hasn't made that public statement because he doesn't want to lead to the impression of himself as a rebel or outlaw. Now, we'll force him to make the statement, one way or the other. If he stands against us, we're justified in taking sterner measures. If he stands with us, he'll have to say so, and then act in concert with us instead of going behind our backs."

"Hmmm," said Erasmus.

Aurora fought to keep from rolling her eyes. The Acting Minister was going to suggest a drawback or exception when he made _that_ noise. He had proven to be more prickly and hesitant than Aurora had thought he was when she allied with him. _Perhaps it's the difference between theory and practice._ "Yes, sir?"

"I just don't know if this is a _guarantee_," said Erasmus, and drummed his fingers on the list of tactics. "The boy has proven annoyingly unpredictable so far. What will happen if he doesn't pursue either course of action that you think is likeliest?"

Aurora relaxed. This was a reluctance she'd planned for. "Then you'll still have the financial gains from the plan," she said. "No harm done there."

"Unless we drive the boy into open war against us because we threatened him," Erasmus mused.

"I really do not think that will happen," said Aurora, memories of Harry flashing through her mind. _He stood up for his rights against the monitoring board in the end, but he still didn't curse us, didn't hurt us for what we'd done. _"He may well fight a separate war against You-Know-Who and refuse to trust us. He would consider us enemies if we got in his way. But he won't forget himself so far as to take revenge. He's not that kind of person, Minister. Not Dark."

That was the language one needed to speak with Erasmus, and Aurora saw it working now. His face firmed, and he gave one strong nod. "I knew he was not," he said softly. "I've known some decent undeclared wizards, and Potter's one of them. He won't turn to the Dark." His hand tightened on the parchment in front of him. "He just needs a bit of a reminder what war is like, and what the Ministry requires in times of war."

Aurora smiled, her headache easing for the first time that morning. "Just so."

SSSSSSSSSSSS

"Again."

Harry let out his breath slowly, and then focused on Snape's eyes. They were dark and burning in a way that made Harry nervous since the night he'd briefly fallen to Voldemort's control and tried to assassinate McGonagall. But Harry trusted him now. He'd been inside Snape's head when his guardian fought his way free of that control. This shining only meant fierce will.

"_Legilimens,_" he whispered.

His will flew forward, and he swept through the outer layer of Snape's shields. Then Snape threw up another wall, and Harry realized he'd been allowed through the first one to encourage him and trap him into overconfidence.

_This is the way, _Snape told him without words, though they were so deep they might have shared thoughts easily. _This way, and this, and this—_

And so he went on, showing Harry Occlumency techniques less common than the silver pools, tactics he'd developed and used himself in his year spying for Dumbledore against the Dark Lord. Even with his concentration in tatters and the pain of his mental wounds still sometimes overwhelming him, he was the best Occlumens Harry had ever known. The shields were thin and flexible and perfectly in motion, and, best of all, they weren't shaped like anything in particular. Once a Legilimens knew the shape of his victim's mind, such as a forest or a house, he could often identify the defenses from the forms they took, but Snape had amorphous, constantly mutable walls. Harry would strike at what he thought was one of them and find it a shadow, or turn and find another curving behind him, blocking his path or protecting a memory he would have liked to access.

He learned a great deal from Snape during these sessions, but he remembered that he had been confident in the first set of shields that he wrapped around the scar connection, too, and that Voldemort had largely destroyed those without effort.

His will wavered, and Snape pushed him easily out of his mind. His frown was milder than it would have been before the war started, Harry thought, but still present. "You must concentrate harder, Harry," he said quietly. "This is your only hope of keeping him out of your head."

Harry lowered his eyes and nodded. He honestly didn't think the connection could be closed at all, but giving up would be worse than spending this kind of effort. At least he was learning tactics that would help him to defend his mind more effectively if it was ever his own again.

It had not been for most of the last few days. Voldemort assaulted him with visions of hundreds of vampires brooding underground, under the fat, pale, instantly recognizable bulk of a queen. He sent visions of victims captured and tortured to death, and Harry had no idea if they were real or not; he only knew that the papers had reported no disappearances, and that his muscles still ached with the curses as if they were real. His body and his mind swam with potions he was using to keep awake and alert and to sometimes snatch a moment of real rest. He knew he could not continue like this, and he did not think Occlumency was the answer.

"What do you wish to do?" Snape asked, his hand gently stroking Harry's hair. His voice had none of its usual ice or sharpness.

Harry blinked at him, confused, wondering if this meant something was wrong. Then he realized Snape was most likely acting as he did to avoid stressing him or backing him into a corner, the way that Harry himself would usually refrain from mentioning certain subjects when Snape was in a bad mood. He snorted, and Snape raised an eyebrow at him.

"Only thinking how our roles have reversed, again," said Harry, and stretched his arms over his head, wishing the momentary feeling of relaxation and ease it brought him would last longer than it did.

Snape murmured a spell usually used to make patients hit with compression curses uncurl, and Harry felt some of the stress leave his neck and shoulders. He nodded to Snape.

"They are back to what they should have been," said Snape, his voice rough with an emotion that Harry couldn't identify, but knew his guardian would never have shown if his mind were normal. "I am guarding and guiding and protecting you, Harry. My burden should never have been yours to carry."

Harry lowered his eyes. It wasn't worth getting into an argument about that right now. He had enough other things to think about, enough other things to demand his time and attention, Merlin knew.

"You should rest," Snape said quietly. "It's been three nights since you took any Dreamless Sleep potion. You can have some of it again."

Harry tensed again. He hated the way taking the potion made him feel in the morning, drugged and hazy, and it could be potentially fatal now, if he made a bad decision while under the potion's influence. He was about to argue when a flutter of wings announced that an owl had found them in the dungeons, and he turned to deal with it, giving a slight sigh. The post never brought good news, now.

He frowned when he realized the envelope on the owl's leg carried an official Ministry seal. Snape murmured the relaxation spell again, but Harry barely heard him. He almost tore the letter open.

The letter was brief and to the point, which wasn't something Harry could say about most of the Ministry's correspondence.

_June 17th, 1997_

_Vates: _

_This is to inform you that the building belonging to the organization known as the Alliance of Sun and Shadow is hereby claimed. The Ministry requires it for official use. As well, the printing presses used by the Alliance to produce pamphlets and the like are now in service to the war effort. The people who lived and worked in the building have been notified, and are now seeking employment and shelter elsewhere. _

_Gloria Hopewell,_

_Ministry War Claims Subcommittee._

Harry swore softly. The building that housed the Alliance's "official" headquarters hadn't been anything spectacular—a former shop in the middle of Diagon Alley—but it had given people a place to go if they wanted to learn more about the Alliance or swear the oaths, and had given several of the werewolves who were left abandoned and without jobs after the rebellion at Woodhouse a chance to work.

More than that, though, he could read the message Juniper was sending him. _I have more important work for you than the Alliance. The Alliance should be absorbed into the Ministry before it can become a divisive force._

Or, perhaps even more simply: _There's nothing you can do about this._

Harry closed his eyes. He had made no public announcement of his position of the kind they were all clamoring for because he had hoped against hope to avoid open conflict with the Ministry. They _could_ ignore each other. He wasn't sure he'd piss on Juniper if he were on fire, but he wouldn't interfere with the Minister's war effort if it didn't interfere with his. Cooperation was impossible; coexistence might not be. A lie would make him look bad when the Ministry did something he couldn't approve of; a hostile statement would give Voldemort a crack in their defenses to exploit; something neutral and in-between wouldn't satisfy anyone.

And now, this.

_Juniper is trying to push me towards open conflict. Why? Doesn't he understand how bad this would be?_

A moment more of thinking, though, and Harry was sure that he understood Juniper's potion on the matter. Juniper _did_ believe they could afford no division, and wanted Harry to stand with him. But he was determined to be in control of that—coalition; Harry could not bring himself to think of it as an alliance. So he had to demonstrate his control to Harry, and in such a way that Harry would surrender and go along quietly. If anything was better than open conflict, surely that would include surrender.

Except that Harry had changed his mind, and he would not surrender control again, and every step that Juniper took only insured that Harry grew more and more determined in that resolve.

"Harry!"

Abruptly, he blinked and realized that Snape had been calling his name for the past few minutes. He passed over the letter and then began pacing his guardian's office, biting his lip, hard, as he thought.

What was the best course of action?

He didn't want to part ways openly with the Ministry, but as long as he didn't, Juniper would keep pushing him, and other people would spin horrible stories out of his silence, like the one that had emerged in the wake of the vampire attack—that he simply paid more attention to, and cared more about, magical creatures than humans. And those would stress him, and—

Harry let out a windy, gusting sigh. _I can't let that happen. I'm pushed and harassed enough as it is, and Voldemort won't let up on me; I can't make him back off except by killing him. There's a chance I can do it with Juniper and everyone chattering at me to say something, say something, _say something. _So I'll do it._

"You cannot let him get away with this," Snape said softly, looking up. "I thought he would have taken his lesson from the open opposition you showed to him in the Ministry, but it does not seem so."

"That gave him courage because it was private, I think," said Harry. "And I didn't hurry to publicize it, either. He must think I'll accept an alliance with him in lieu of everyone finding out." He took a deep breath. "And I know _exactly_ which way to convince him that that's wrong."

SSSSSSSSSSS

Draco had been staring at the letter that had come for him for the last five minutes, trying to decide on the best course of action.

_June 17th, 1997_

_Gringotts Bank_

_Dear Mr. Malfoy:_

_I speak for the _hanarz, _the leader of the southern goblins. You will, I think, know her, as you are the lover of the _vates.

_The Ministry contacted us today about seizing your vaults and forbidding you from accessing them. This includes not only the Malfoy fortune your father arranged for you to inherit, but every vault you might access in the future; if the _vates _gave you access to the Black money, for example, that money would automatically become the property of the Ministry. They have forgotten their recent lessons in our independence. As there has so far been no rumor of the _vates _and the Acting Minister definitely parting ways, however, we defer to your wishes._

_Sincerely,_

_Ragsong._

Draco closed his eyes.

He had, of course, wanted to seize the first quill near at hand and haughtily instruct the goblins never to let anyone touch anything of his. But that would get more people than just himself in trouble. Draco wasn't foolish enough to think the Ministry would listen to him. They would invade Gringotts for the money, and the goblins would fight, and that would lead to bloodshed in the streets. Or they would demand access to the vaults, and the goblins would refuse, and Juniper could use that to stir up fears among wizards about who _really_ controlled the gold in Gringotts, and unite some of Harry's enemies against him, behind the Acting Minister.

_Just exactly what we do not need right now. Voldemort's being explosive enough as it is._

Draco let a small, fierce smile slip across his face. For one thing, he had no fear that he was suddenly about to go hungry or poor; Harry would insure he had money enough for his needs. Harry did not value money except for what it could do, and as far as he was concerned, Draco could have as much of the Black fortune as Regulus or the Black legal documents would let him take. So the Ministry's threat to freeze future vaults was not something he needed to react against.

And it might be well to seemingly accede gracefully, for now, and have this hidden weapon lying in wait for when the time was right. There might come an hour when the goblins' willingness to protect something because it belonged to a person who belonged to the _vates_ would be useful. Likely in the wake of bigger explosions, of course, but Draco was determined not to cause one that could be traced to him.

And it was the Slytherin thing to do, not reacting to provocation with the expected hatred and open anger.

He sat down and wrote calmly back, instructing the goblins to allow the Ministry provisional access to the Malfoy vaults for now. If they tried to take any money from them, as opposed to not letting Draco remove money, then Draco wished to hear from Ragsong at once. He would decide what to do, depending on if Juniper was so audacious as to try to use the Malfoy funds like spoils of war.

He also asked, as if casually, for the letter the Ministry had sent to Gringotts making their demand.

He liked to have more than one weapon up his sleeve.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry smiled as politely as he could through the green flames in the Floo connection, and inclined his head. "Madam Whitestag," he said. He didn't _think_ his teeth were grinding. The pain in his head increased noticeably when he did that, and so far it remained at its even pounding, pulsing tempo. "I wanted to speak to you about this letter the Acting Minister sent me. A small matter of shutting down the organization of the Alliance of Sun and Shadow, I think."

Aurora gave him a little smile of her own. "I am sorry for that, Harry," she said. "But we needed the space and the presses. Needs must, in a time of war." She glanced up from the chair she sat in. "Here is the Acting Minister now. Of course he would want to speak with you about this."

Juniper strode through the door of the office. Harry realized he was waiting for him to limp. He fought the temptation to close his eyes and bow his head. Yes, he missed Minister Scrimgeour, but he was dead now and beyond being hurt, since he hadn't left a ghost. Harry had to concentrate on the living.

"_Vates_," said Juniper, pulling up another chair. He bent down towards the fire, and let Harry have a good look at his face, stern and lined. Harry thought that was supposed to impress him with how busy the Acting Minister was and how he was taking time out of that busy day for this conversation. Since Harry was rather busy himself, he was not impressed. "You have some questions about what we did with the small group of werewolves and wizards working in the building the Ministry claimed yesterday?"

Harry shook his head. "I did have questions. Not any more, Acting Minister."

Juniper raised his eyebrows. "Then you agree that the Ministry needs all the support it can receive in this war, Mr. Pott—_vates_?" For the first time, he spoke the name with eagerness, and true respect.

"I understand that you want my support," Harry said.

Juniper nodded.

"I understand that you were willing to shut down an organization that did you no harm, and might have done you some good by encouraging people not to panic, and to _think_ about their situation, because you wanted to get at me," Harry continued, in the same flat, almost bored voice. Really, he was surprised by how easy this was, once he assented to the idea that he and Juniper had parted ways and nothing was going to reconcile them.

"I would not phrase it that way," said Juniper.

"Of course _you_ wouldn't." Harry leaned forward. "But I don't see you claiming presses from the _Prophet_, Acting Minister, which has far more of them. There were two presses only that the Alliance owned. And we were able to purchase the building we did in the first place because it had sat abandoned for so long. There are much better buildings in Diagon Alley that you could have acquired if you wanted one."

"Those others are legitimate businesses," Juniper said.

He probably meant that to sound impressive, too, or at least chiding; his voice had taken on the tone of a parent scolding an angry child. Harry smiled, slowly. The man had said almost exactly what Harry would have wished him to.

"And the Alliance of Sun and Shadow cannot be," he said. "Why is that, Acting Minister? Because it was associated with me? Or because the people who worked there were mostly werewolves?"

Juniper's eyes narrowed. "Neither," he said. "I only meant that the people working there did not depend on the Alliance for their livelihood, Mr. Potter."

"And again you give me a name I dropped almost two years ago," Harry said softly. "Not only Minister Scrimgeour, but most of my enemies, at least gave me the courtesy of using the only name I can lay claim to, my first one."

Juniper was too good a politician to run his hand through his hair, but Harry thought he could see traces of the impulse to do so in his eyes. "I am not your enemy, _vates._"

"You have tried to force me to join you," said Harry. "You have targeted people close to me unfairly, when you could have claimed money and possessions from many others if your concern was the quality of life the Ministry must maintain under martial law. Tell me, Acting Minister. If that does not fit the definition of enemy, what does it fit? And if you are intent on acting as you should, if your main moral project in this war is to remain separate from Voldemort, how can you excuse such things?"

"There is no one else in your position," said Juniper. He remained still, but his eyes burned like Snape's, or like the suddenly mounting headache behind Harry's temples. "No one else who can so influence what we do, Harry. No one else whose departure from our cause can so damage us. We _must_ have you with us."

"This, Acting Minister," said Harry, "was the exact wrong way to go about it. You have never understood me, and you never will. I have something in common with the magical creatures I am trying to free: I don't like being cornered."

He flipped his wrist over, and his magic rose around him. A silvery flow of memories traveled from his temple to the golden bubble suddenly forming in the air a few feet away. The bubble budded once it contained the memories, once and then again, and then again, and then again. It was still budding when it sped out of the room. Harry had directed it to go to Hogsmeade. The other, smaller bubbles would follow it and "learn" the right way to go about doing what Harry wanted them to do, before they spread around the British Isles.

"What have you done?" Juniper demanded, half-rising to his feet.

"The bubbles are modified Pensieves," Harry said calmly, sitting back in his chair. "They will seek out every wizarding village of any size in Britain and Ireland, and display the memories of the conversation we just had. Anyone who wishes is welcome to capture one and put his or her head in, so that they can verify that these memories work like the memories of Pensieves. They are _true_, Acting Minister, and you have just made some admissions that could hurt your cause very badly."

Aurora actually let out a little shriek, and then clasped her hand across her mouth, eyes wide. Juniper shook his head and leaned forward, voice lowering, the way Snape's did when he was angry. Harry didn't think he was angry, though. He sounded more as though he were struggling to understand.

"Why, Harry? Why would you do such a thing?"

"Because," Harry said, rising to his feet, his headache easing a bit as the magic flooded away from him, "I am tired of being pushed."

Juniper's face darkened. "And you wish us to lose the war to your childlike temper?"

"If you had approached me as an equal," Harry said, "if you had accepted that I am _not_ going to accept such measures as caging my father and targeting me specifically in the claiming of buildings, then that would never have been a concern, Acting Minister. As matters stand, it _is_ very much your concern. Good day." He shut the Floo connection with an easy wave of his hand, and then turned and strode out of the room.

He hadn't told Juniper everything the bubbles would do, of course. There was no sense in ruining his fun. The papers coming out tomorrow, or the first person who sped into the Ministry with a report, would be early enough.

The villages would also see an announcement that Harry was willing to take on anyone who would come to him and promise to help in the war. The people raging and frustrated because they could do nothing would have something to do. Those exasperated by the Ministry's actions would see that it was not the only locus of resistance to Voldemort. Those with nowhere else to go would have a place. Those who wanted to learn stronger defensive spells so that they could go back to their own homes and help protect them—an action Harry would highly encourage, so that he could be less worried about random attacks everywhere in Britain—could learn them.

He would never be a Lord, but he could modify their tactics. Lords had often taken on sworn companions in the past. Harry was doing the same thing, but he would work with them as equals, as true companions, and use them for far more than protecting and amusing himself.

_And it will prevent this from becoming a war of Light and Dark, the way Juniper wants to make it. There are Light wizards like the Weasleys whom I hope to prevent from following the Ministry, but they might do it if they think that's the only place they're truly welcome. And I won't have undeclared wizards and Dark wizards panicked into lying low or changing their allegiances merely to be safe, when they could fight in unique ways against Voldemort._

It was not his imagination, he realized suddenly. The constant headache had ebbed a bit. And it had done so not because of pleasant thoughts, as he had believed at first, but with his release of an enormous amount of magic.

_I wonder if that happens because I'm drawing on the magic that flows between Voldemort and me, and this leaves him less strength to attack me with visions?_

Harry felt something that could have been a smile and could have been a smirk tug at his mouth. _I didn't get everything I wanted. Juniper is an idiot, and this would have been far easier if he would simply work with me, or if there was a way that I could stand in his fold and not betray all my principles._

_But at least now everyone will know, and realize there's a viable alternative to the Ministry. They no longer own the field._

_I am sorry that it came to this, Scrimgeour. But, if I'm right about the legacy you left in place, at least some of your people will become the core of a new, better Ministry—whether or not it's within the walls of the current one._

He held up his hand, and cast a floating rainbow shimmer of magic around himself, because he could, and it eased his headache, and he thought he heard a distant snarl from Voldemort. Harry laughed back. The laugh was half a growl.

_Anything I can do to discomfit the bastard is fair game._

SSSSSSSSS

"That—no," said Aurora blankly, and then leaned back in her chair.

Erasmus went on staring at the closed Floo connection. Of all the ways he had envisioned his conversation with Harry going, that had never been one of them. The boy could have acquiesced and come to their side quietly, or burst into noisy screams and tears, the way that most children of his age would have. He could have made some ridiculously extravagant gesture that would matter nothing to anyone but him, and be forgotten in a week's time. He could finally have made the public statement on his position that everyone wanted out of him.

Instead, he had chosen a gesture that would wreak havoc with the British wizarding population, splitting it in half, or nearly so.

Erasmus leaned back against the chair, and finally forced himself to confront another piece of reality he'd been ignoring.

_He cares more for his own freedom and independence, the way he looks and acts, than for the united front we must present against his enemies. He's accepted the division as inevitable and used it to benefit himself._

That said and done, Erasmus thought, snapping his eyes open, he would not waste his time in trying to compel the boy. He could not afford to waste strength in fighting him, either. He would part ways with him, since it was what Harry wanted, and advance the new Order he planned to inaugurate on Midsummer Eve.

_So the Light stands alone against the Dark. Well, it has ever been so._

Admittedly, that thought made him feel better before one of the Aurors came dashing in to report that Harry, had after all, made a public statement, and it was rather different than anyone had expected.


	7. Interlude: The Offers

Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter!

**Interlude: The Offers**

_June 18th, 1997_

_Dear _vates:

My living name is unimportant. You may call me Vermillion. What you need to know is that I am a vampire, and I, along with several others of my kind, are unhappy about the actions of the hive allied with the Dark Lord. Their attacks are too open, and they are trying too hard to establish a nesting site. They will provoke the Ministry into open panic soon, and that will result in the hunting and burning of vampires like us, who have no part in these activities, as well as those mindless creatures who deserve it.

We will come to a bargain with you. We will show you the resting place of the hive's queen. Below is a map of the northern coast of Scotland, with Apparition coordinates. We trust you know how to use them.

In return, you will both come to meet us, so that you can hear of the differences between individual vampires and the hive, and take us among your allies when you have learned that we speak the truth. We expect to be lieutenants at the least. We are vampires, and that means cleverer, stronger, faster, and certainly more powerful than all but a few of your allies.

This owl will find me. In return for our choosing the place, you may choose the time of our meeting and who to bring with you. Bring as many or as few bodyguards as you feel comfortable with. We shall not be insulted, for we know mortals grow uneasy in our presence.

_In pride,_

_Vermillion._

SSSSSSSSS

_June 18th, 1997_

_Dear sister:_

I hope this letter finds you well. I have heard so little from you over the long years that I find myself ignorant of even your state of health. I also find myself lamenting that. Sisters should not be so estranged from one another.

Of course, I have another member of my family to keep close and comfort my sad heart during the long hours. I am able to look over at any time I wish and see my nephew with a pale face and a rapidly beating heart, but alive.

Understand one thing, sister. My Lord is not pleased with Feldspar. Nor am I, since he was the one who necessitated my service. That means that, though he has been called back into the Dark Lord's service, he is unlikely to live long. He will be sent on the most dangerous missions, and, well, if something happens to him, I can at least hope that he will die in an amusing way, as there will be a mysterious shortage of healing potions in his immediate area.

I know that you do not wish this to happen. You love your son. That can be seen in the way you spoiled him. And who would not love such a child as he was, who did seem to understand Yaxley honor, who had so much potential?

But it is what will happen, Peridot, unless you do a few things for us. In return, I will protect Feldspar and keep him from bleeding out his life on the end of another's wand or cracking his silly head open on the ground.

First, I know that you still have access to some of the Ministry's more corruptible elements. You will be helping my Lord find the contacts he needs to climb into the Acting Minister's very pocket.

Second, you will do what you can to persuade our sister Lazuli out of her madness of supporting Harry vates.

Can you succeed in these? I do not know if you can. I only know that you should try very, very hard.

It is for the sake of the family, after all.

And so is the potion smeared on this letter. My Lord has recently acquired a Potions brewer who, while not of the same inventive skills as Severus Snape, is capable of following complicated instructions. The moment you touched this parchment, sister, the potion passed into your skin. My Lord can set you on fire with a thought, now, from any distance, and he will not hesitate to do it if you neglect your duties.

To avoid this is simple, of course. Do not neglect them.

With warm and sisterly regards,

_Indigena Yaxley._

Vita desinit, decus permanit.


	8. Rider on the Hatred

Thanks for the reviews on the Interlude!

**Chapter Five: Rider on the Hatred**

Minerva stood with head high and arms folded as she watched the last of the first-year Gryffindors Floo through the hearth in her office, on their way home. Those who didn't have Floo connections, mostly the Muggleborn students, had already been Apparated home by those of the professors and Harry's adult allies who could make the journey. The Hogwarts Express might be tradition, but it was a tradition too vulnerable to preserve in times of war.

"Madam?"

Minerva turned, a bit surprised to see Neville Longbottom behind her. She'd thought Augusta would have claimed him and transported him home already. "Yes, Mr. Longbottom?" she asked, and made sure to arrange her face in a welcoming expression. Merlin knew Neville needed all the encouragement he could get. One of the minor frustrations of becoming Headmistress and no longer having the time for her students in Gryffindor that she used to had been her knowledge that Neville was not as likely to receive that encouragement from anyone else.

"Is—" Neville paused for a moment, as if figuring out how to phrase the question, then asked, "Will the school be open next year?"

Minerva felt her face soften. She could remember a time when asking that question without stuttering would have been beyond Neville. And it was a good question, one that she had seen asked in the way people looked at her from the corners of their eyes and half-opened their mouths before they turned away from her again.

"Yes," she said. "It will be, Neville."

He blinked glassy eyes at her. "Really? Even with the War?"

"Even with the War," Minerva said firmly. "Hogwarts is a sanctuary for those in need, Neville. I will not shut it unless it became a greater magnet for trouble than a shelter. And its wards make it one of the most powerfully-defended places in Britain. Even Voldemort would have trouble attacking us, given the Founders and how deep the wards run. Whilst the children and others are sheltering here, they might as well learn something."

Neville gave a faint smile, and for a moment, Minerva saw his father. Frank Longbottom had been taller than Neville at this age and not as stocky, but he'd had the same manner of considering what an adult said with a forthright air, as though he were grateful for the information but would make up his own mind about it. Minerva swallowed a sudden burst of pain. It had been less than five years after Frank was Neville's age that he and his wife had lost their minds to Bellatrix Lestrange's Cruciatus. _May a similar fate not await their son._

"You don't think the Ministry will force you to close the school?" Neville asked then, and proved he had a mind of his own. Frank had been a bit more trusting of authority figures—understandably, since Albus had been the Headmaster for all his years at school.

"They can try," said Minerva.

She left unsaid that she would not let them win, but Neville picked up on it. His face brightened. "Thank you for telling me, Madam," he said quietly, and then left the office.

Minerva turned and shut the Floo connection. She had already received a letter from the Acting Minister, in fact, asking her to visit him in a few days' time and "explore choices for the alternative education of Hogwarts students in the autumn term."

It was lucky she was no stranger to battles.

SSSSSSSSSSS

"And the beds tell me stories, and with coaxing, they will tell me stories that I haven't heard from them before," Luna finished with a triumphant expression.

"That's good, Luna." Harry squeezed her hand and smiled at her. Her throat was healing nicely, he saw, though a swathe of bandages still concealed the puncture wound from sight. Madam Pomfrey had had to use Skele-Gro on one of her arms; the vampire who'd attacked Luna had grabbed her arm and swung her so hard into a tree that her bones simply went to powder. But, with magic and the matron's stern care to keep her from wandering out of bed and conversing with the walls, Luna was recovering. "You don't need anything?"

"The stones tell me everything that I need to know," said Luna serenely. Then her forehead wrinkled. "Oh, but they don't tell me about the object that hates everything in the world."

Harry caught his breath. Luna had told him about the object before, but now that he knew about Horcruxes, the description of something that hated everything in the world meant rather more. "What is it? Do you know?"

Luna gave him a patient look. "No. I just said that the stones don't tell me everything. I've been in the Headmistress's office whenever I felt it, but then it leaves. I don't know why. I thought for a time that it was linked to Professor Snape's presence, but I was very careful to pay attention to all the cauldrons and vials in Potions class, and even his wand. I never felt it."

Harry nodded. It was, of course, reasonable that Voldemort had endowed a Horcrux with the power to move about. Hogwarts was a reasonably secure hiding place for one because of its large size, but it would be even more secure if the object—whatever it was—could scuttle into a corner when suspected. "Try to sense it again, Luna, if you can, and fetch me when you do." He touched her left wrist with his hand. "You know the phoenix-calling spell?"

"Yes, but I don't like using it," said Luna. "I am not a phoenix. You are."

"I grant you permission to be a phoenix, for a short time," said Harry gravely. _And why not? I have allies who speak a stranger tongue._

Luna's face cleared. "Thank you," she said a moment later. "I am glad you did that. Now perhaps I can sing about the object when I find it, and about Light." She cocked her head to the side to study him. "I am Light, and my father is Light, and you do not mind that, do you?"

"No," said Harry, letting go her hand and standing. He'd seen Draco enter the hospital wing, and he'd rather have the inevitable argument in private. "All wizards are welcome to fight beside us, Luna, as long as they'll stay true and commit themselves to defense. That's why I made that public statement through the bubbles that I did, that anyone can come and swear to me."

"Oh, good," said Luna sleepily, leaning back on her pillows. 'That means that the headboard is not wrong, and I should invite my father to come to Hogwarts and talk to you. Since I won't go home for the summer anyway."

Harry blinked. He had assumed Luna stayed because she was still recovering from her intense wounds during the battle. "What?"

But she slept.

Harry shook his head and turned to meet Draco. Draco's jaw was slightly clenched, and he gave a perfunctory nod when Harry raised an eyebrow. Harry sighed and accompanied him out of the hospital wing, absently lifting a hand to rub at his head. He hadn't used much magic in the last day; given what he expected to happen tonight, he would need all he could gather at his disposal. That made the headache, the sudden flashes of death and torture, worse.

"I don't think you should go," Draco said.

"What? No sly hinting around the issue? No metaphors that could mean something else?" Harry stifled the impulse to yawn. He hadn't had an unbroken night's sleep since Scrimgeour died. He took cat-naps when he could, usually about an hour in duration. Hermione had found a book in the library that claimed such short periods of rest were actually more healthy than eight or nine hours of unbroken sleep. Neither Snape nor Draco had been amused when Harry repeated that to them.

"Of course not." Draco folded his arms. "Vampires are intensely dangerous, Harry, and they've chosen their ground. This has all the earmarks of a trap. I don't care how many people you take with you, it's still dangerous."

"I know that," Harry pointed out patiently. "But I can choose the time, and I plan to give them a few minutes' notice at best. And I'll have you with me, and Owen, Syrinx, Snape, Regulus, Peter, Henrietta, your mother, and Connor. Moody is meeting us there with Ignifer, Honoria, and Thomas. You honestly don't think that will be protection enough?"

"I still think it's a trap," said Draco. "And with the time they've had to prepare, they could overcome all of us. Doesn't this seem a _little_ suspicious to you, Harry? The resting place of the queen is valuable information."

"It's not the same as information on how to destroy her," said Harry calmly. "Or offering to kill her for me, even. Then I'd be suspicious. But what they ask seems reasonable for people as proud and selfish as vampires. I have a lot of practice in dealing with that kind of person, after all."

Draco flushed. "Very funny," he snapped, and closed his eyes to regain his control. When he opened them, he'd bitten his lip hard enough to spill a bit of blood down his chin. Harry made a mental note to tell him to heal that before they met Vermillion and the other vampires. "I don't think you're safe, Harry, but I'll go with you and protect you from yourself."

Harry rolled his eyes. "You would have been coming with me anyway, prat. I'm not about to put my life in more danger than it already is, you know."

Draco simply reached out and pulled Harry against him, seemingly wanting nothing more than a hug. Harry willingly gave it, smoothing his hand up and down Draco's spine and wishing those simple strokes could calm the rapid beat of his heart.

"I know it's hard," he whispered. "For all of us, it's hard. But I'll stay as safe as I can, Draco. I'm making the safest decisions I can, with the most accurate information. We _need_ as many people as will come to our side to win this war, and with the heavy protection we'll have going in, the vampires should think twice about springing any trap."

"I worry," Draco whispered. "I worry about you, Harry. The toll of this is heaviest on you."

"That's impossible to know without interviewing everyone involved," Harry pointed out gently, glad that Draco had said it anyway. He'd needed to smile. "And what there is of that weight is impossible to change."

"So you'll keep just bearing it?"

"Yes, Draco. What else is there to do?"

Draco sighed, and said nothing. Harry planted a kiss on the top of his head and stepped away. There was something else to be done, of course—in this case, speaking with Moon and asking him if he'd heard anything of a vampire called Vermillion before this. There was _always_ something else to do.

SSSSSSSSSS

Draco stood close to Harry in ways that no one else did, so of course he would see things that no one else could.

Before they Apparated to the coordinates that Vermillion had given them, for example—coordinates already reported on by Moody as depositing them on a rippled brown-yellow beach with the North Sea breaking just beyond—Draco saw Harry's face take on an intent, listening expression, as though he were hearing music, and saw him glance along the ranks of wizards accompanying him. From that look, Draco knew, he would memorize the physical condition and position of each wizard or witch. He would know who was in the most danger if an attack came from north or south, east or west. He could direct the strongest wizards to fall in around the rest.

And there was the fact that he took Draco's arm with an absent caress which set Draco's blood racing at a ridiculous pace, probably because he and Harry had spent no time in bed together since Scrimgeour's assassination. Harry was not, unfortunately, one of those people whose libido seemed encouraged by stress. Draco resolved quietly to himself to see what he could do to change that. For Harry's sake, of course. Everyone knew that sex relaxed people and left them feeling happier.

And there was the fact that when the first of the vampires stepped forward in the darkness and the wind and came straight for Harry, Harry lifted his head and met his eyes without fear, but his magic humming around him like a bowstring.

_He fought them a few nights ago, but he can give this one a chance. _Draco kept his own eyes half-averted, so the vampire couldn't compel him. He supposed it was good that Harry was that kind of person. He couldn't be _vates_ otherwise.

_But it's why the rest of us are here to protect him. Trusting these blood-suckers is still taking a risk._

"Harry," said the vampire in a familiar voice that made Draco frown. _He should at least have addressed him by title, if he's serious about being respectful. But when have vampires ever respected anyone without having it beaten into them?_

"Vermillion," said Harry, without any hesitancy that Draco could hear. That was good. When dealing with vampires, uncertainty could cost lives. "I have come to see the resting place of the queen and discuss taking you into the alliance, as we agreed. How many of you are there?"

The darkness seemed to stir, and three other vampires melted out of it to stand beside Vermillion. Draco clenched his fists at his sides and observed them narrowly. Two were male, and clad in the same nondescript but well-tailored wizard clothing as Vermillion. The last was a woman, with long black hair which hung straight as reeds on either side of her face. She wore a flowing gown that showed off her pale shoulders and long, white hands.

Draco knew those hands could grab him by the throat and break his neck in seconds. There might be some Mudbloods who thought vampires were dashing and romantic, and Granger probably thought they were misunderstood and needed to be freed of prejudices just as house elves did, but Draco had grown up with stories of vampires and how they hunted. He let his wand fall into his hand, and waited. If one of them made a move to hurt Harry, he was sure he could summon enough hatred to use the Killing Curse.

More shadows moved, but those were Moody, the Pemberley women, and Rhangnara, stepping close to the vampires' backs. By the way that Vermillion sniffed, he was aware of them, but did not deign to turn and face them.

"My companions are Adonis, Tammuz, and Psyche," said Vermillion. "They have agreed to follow me and let me be their spokesman, Harry. But we will need guarantees from you before you see the queen."

_Don't let them get away with this, Harry, _Draco told him without sound, and was sure Snape was sending him the same silent message. _They have to respect you, or they'll manipulate, corrupt, and destroy you as soon as they can, and think nothing of it. Vampires believe that anyone weaker than they are deserves whatever they get._

"No," said Harry.

Vermillion gave a single, sharp hiss, which reminded Draco far too much of the hisses the hive in the Forbidden Forest had given. "You _dare_?" he asked. "We approach you as an equal, while you are still mortal, and you would refuse a request?" His posture changed, though how, Draco could not have said, as he didn't move. Small muscle shifts and perhaps an angling of his face transformed him into a savage predator, though, no longer relaxed, but ready to spring at the slightest motion. "Have a care. We need not show you the queen at all, and then the first you will see of her is when she comes to make your Hogwarts her nest, seasoned with the blood of wizard children."

Draco fought to keep from vomiting at the thought. Vampires were so protective of their queens because the queens could bear living young, while otherwise vampires increased their numbers only through biting humans. But, to have a nesting site where the live births were possible, the ground needed to be prepared with the blood of hundreds of dead. It was some of the foulest magic that existed, beyond Dark and into filth. The spirits of the wizards—and other creatures—who died at the nesting site would become fodder for the hive, incarnated into the new vampires whether they would or no.

Harry didn't move. Instead, his magic shifted to mimic what Vermillion had done, suddenly soaring around him to make him more threatening. Draco looked at him, since he couldn't look at Vermillion or one of the other vampires without risking the compulsion, and swallowed. Harry stood perfectly still, the wind lifting one dark curl, but his eyes actually cast their own light, cutting the darkness with a faint, eerie green glow like—well, not much like anything else, really, Draco thought, but maybe panther's eyes set on fire.

Harry didn't say a word, either. He went on gazing at the vampires, asking without words if they wanted to challenge his power, fang against magic both Dark and Light.

Vermillion moved a step closer. Draco's wand snapped up, along with half-a-dozen others, and he was pleased to hear someone murmur a time-delayed charm, setting Merlin knew what kind of nasty trap for the vampires if they dared to strike. Behind the vampiress, Psyche, Ignifer Pemberley called fire. It blazed in her hands, a small, intense point of light, and dripped glowing beads of flame on the sand.

None of that made the vampires flinch. Draco watched how closely they all oriented on Harry, and was sure it was the sense of that magic that made Vermillion slowly lower his head and draw his lips over his fangs.

"The queen first," he said.

No apologies, of course. Draco thought it was probably against some kind of ancient and obscure vampire code to apologize. Instead, Vermillion turned and hissed into the night, at the ocean.

A shimmer that was not light came into being over the waves. Draco, his eyes aching as he tried to follow the stinging curve of it—it hurt to look at—thought it might be the visible sign of the blood-heat a vampire could follow, and which would lead them straight to any but dying prey. The color, if this anti-light had a color at all, would have been dark red or purple, slowly tracing out an enormous bulk that seemed to float beneath the surface of the water. Draco shuddered at the thought of a queen so massive she could not support her weight on land.

A slight tremor ran through the beach.

Draco had little time to think about it before hands shot up out of a pit in the sand and grabbed his ankles.

SSSSSSSSSSS

Harry threw himself sideways, and the hands that shot out of the concealed pit in the sand missed him. He landed badly, though, half-twisting one ankle, and he couldn't avoid the crawling female vampire who threw herself out of a shallow trench and at him. One look at her glazed eyes told him this was a worker, however independent Vermillion and his friends were.

_He betrayed us._

_Or perhaps he's of the hive._

Harry set his magic loose, in a shimmer of fire that danced over his limbs and curled along above his skin. In moments, it was on the worker's flesh, clinging fiercely, and filling the night with dancing shadows. Harry saw Vermillion leap back as the shrieking vampiress let Harry go and rolled towards him, her thin, high, death keens filling the air.

Harry snapped a quick glance along the beach. The vampires had been completely covered, both, Harry guessed, for protection from the sun and because of course they didn't need to breathe. No one else had escaped, and most of them were struggling without success against the superior strength of the vampires. The drone that held Connor simply clutched him stiffly, as if waiting for something, but the others were dipping their heads and pressing their fangs against yielding necks. Adonis, Tammuz, and Psyche had backed off, probably to avoid any chance of getting hit by Light magic that the captive wizards might manage to cast. Vermillion stood still with his arms folded, his eyes looking with equal and cool disinterest on the fighting humans and on the ashes that were all that remained of the worker who had attacked Harry.

For one moment, as he locked eyes with the vampire, all Harry felt was deep, pure, blackest hatred.

And in that instant, Voldemort struck his mind like a comet.

Harry shouted, but the cry was one mainly of rage, and not pain. This was not like the visions Voldemort had shown him, urging him to drop the pretense of having caution or morals and attack. This was much more like the emotion he'd felt the night of Scrimgeour's assassination, a whirlwind drowning him, pulling him along, calling up all the anger that he'd ever felt for not being able to protect those he loved and turning it against him as a blade.

Voldemort knew what he was about this time, and had chosen his weapon well. No matter where Harry looked, whether he had his eyes open or shut, he saw a vision of someone he loved in danger.

Open, and there was Draco, head dangling limply as the worker fed greedily from his throat, her own throat pulsing in steady swallows.

Shut, and there was Sirius, the last, fey smile on his face before he lifted his wand for the curse that would doom him.

Open, and there was Connor, trying to do something, trying to break free, but unable to perform any spell without his wand.

Shut, and there was Sylarana, flinging herself on the basilisk, her bite sending it into convulsions, her slender golden body becoming less than a smear on the floor of the Chamber of Secrets.

Open, and there was Snape, his face already ashen pale, carved with the lines of so much pain he should never have had to endure.

Shut, and there was Scrimgeour, dying of a poison Harry might have been able to reverse if he hadn't been so distracted by Snape's possession, if he could have Apparated to the Minister's side.

Harry's grief became rage became hatred at the Dark Lord who had caused and was causing all these losses, and that hatred closed slow iron jaws around his conscience and his soul. He had to fight his way free, but he could only do that while he was being calm, and how he could be calm when people he loved were dying or being drained right in front of him?

He opened his eyes, and was in time to see Honoria drop limply to the sand.

Harry screamed.

His magic lashed about him, casting a film of ice across the beach that made Vermillion step away from him as if dancing, but that did nothing for the division in his skull. If anything, it made it worse. He could hear Voldemort laughing now, whispering to him.

_Yes. Why not, Harry? You could come to me, and kill me, and end it now. You know of the Horcruxes, but there are ways to bypass them, ways to slay me and make me stop causing pain to those you love. Isn't that what you were trained to do? Why should they be taking the brunt of a war that is aimed mainly at you? You are the one I hate, Harry, the one I want to hurt. If you came to me and yielded yourself, then I would stop hunting them. If you came to me and _gave _yourself, then I would spare anyone that you wanted me to spare, since my heir would have to have some say in the world we made. Is there not some temptation in that vision? Do you not hate yourself for wanting to listen to me, and believe that I mean what I say?_

And yes, as much as he knew it wasn't true, Harry wanted to believe it, and he hated Voldemort for that, too, and the hatred piled on top of the hatred, and he was gasping, choking, drowning, his mind counting the number of pale faces he saw when he opened his eyes, his self-loathing tearing him apart with claws sharper than any hatred Voldemort could have mustered, his scar burning and burning and burning as his vision dimmed.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Connor pulled and struggled and kept his hand reaching frantically. He did not look up from the hold of the drone's arms at anyone else, because he knew he would lose his concentration if he could see them, and he was having a hard enough time keeping to his goal without that.

His goal was sane, and simple.

_Reach his wand._

His wand was in his robe pocket, from which he'd started to slide it when the sand shook beneath them. But it had fallen back inside when the drone grabbed him. It was still partially sticking out, though, and Connor's hand had been trapped by the vampire's arm just slightly above the pocket. If he could reach it, if he could pull it out, then he could do something.

The vampire paid no attention to him whatsoever, even when Connor's fingers slipped past his elbow a quarter of an inch. Connor restrained the curses he wanted to utter, because that would only waste breath, already a precious commodity in the drone's embrace, and wriggled his hand again. Sweat was easing its passage a bit, but not enough. If this had been bare flesh to bare flesh, instead of bare flesh against the moldering cloth the vampire wore, it would have been easier.

And any moment the vampire could notice him, and trap his hand more firmly, and he would lose all his priceless progress.

Connor gritted his teeth and forbade himself to think about that. It was the memory of the lessons in compulsion with Sirius—or, rather, Voldemort in Sirius's body—that let him do so. Voldemort had taught him that, to compel someone else, you had to want that person's body to move or her mind to change more than anything else in the world. And, right now, Connor wanted his hand to move.

Surge, surge, surge. Connor heard the impact of a body with the sand. And still he didn't think about it, and still he concentrated, reaching, straining, dying to touch the end of his wand, making holly and phoenix feather the only thing that existed for him.

And then his fingers brushed it.

Strength and power flooded Connor, as much triumph as magic, and he bellowed the spell he'd known he would use if his miracle succeeded, the one Peter had taught him at Lux Aeterna last summer, the one he had a particular fondness for because it was of the Light _and_ could be used to defend.

"_Aurora ades dum!_"

Dawn blossomed in the mouth of the vampire above him, and the drone shrieked and threw him away, the reflexes in the midst of burning strong enough, it seemed, to overcome even a queen's command. Connor rolled, and it was Moody's training that rang through his head now, telling him how to fall, and never, never to let his wand go out of sight. His body could take care of the fall, even if he hit his head, but one of his enemies would take care of his wand unless he claimed it.

There it was, arcing over his head and nearly vanishing behind him. Connor grabbed it, even as he fell heavily on his arse and shoulder.

More shrieks were arising now, and curses, probably from the individual vampires they had come to meet. Connor scrambled up, half-shielding his eyes against the intense light, and saw members of the hive writhing as the sunshine took them, withering like moths. Others were surging up from behind the shadows, though, and making their way towards the people who lay too still on the beach—Snape among them—or staggered, dizzy, trying to recover from blood loss but as yet too shocked to do so. Even Ignifer Pemberley, whose hands drizzled fire, simply stood with her arms hanging at her side, breath slow and head continually shaking.

Connor smiled. He had the impression that it wasn't a very nice smile.

One of the drone creeping forward, belly to the ground, tried to catch his eye and roll him with compulsion, but Connor snorted and threw it off. He was a compeller, and that made him immune. Besides, he had the best idea for a spell ever. He didn't think he could manage the Solstice Summons Ron had used last time, but he didn't need to. This spell actually functioned better in the middle of the night.

"_Sol concubia nocte!_" he yelled.

And the sun came.

It was a version of the _Apricus_ charm Harry had used above the Forbidden Forest, essentially, but it drew its power from the night around it, and weakened during the day—the Midnight Sun Charm. The sky above them went white, and then golden, and then red-orange, and Connor lifted his head to see lines of fire streaking down the night, eating the darkness as they came.

Those lines followed fated, destined paths to the vampires of the hive, and simply wiped them from existence when they struck. Connor smiled as he watched smear after smear of Dark magic vanish without a trace, becoming flares of dazzling radiance instead.

Sometimes, it was very, very good to be a Light wizard.

He spun, hearing movement behind him, and saw the vampire Vermillion holding his hands up, speaking without respect but with a certain cold dignity. "The _vates_," he said. "He is under attack by the Dark Lord."

Connor spun the other direction, the one he'd last seen Harry in. Yes, Harry lay in the midst of a puddle of ice that endured even the heat of the Midnight Sun Charm, and his eyes were wide and unseeing, as they certainly should not have been given what was happening right in front of him.

Connor knew the spell to use for that, too.

Pointing his wand straight at Harry, he whispered, "_Memoriola amoris._"

SSSSSSSSSS

In and out, and all he could see was the death and the destruction that Voldemort had dealt, or that Harry had dealt, or that they would deliver together. The world had become hatred, and where it had originated, in his mind or in his training or in the Dark Lord's thoughts, did not matter anymore. They were a pair of twinned dark birds, flying towards some unknown destination under a black sun.

And then Connor's spell hit, and Harry's head was filled with memories of his brother.

He lay on the grass of their lawn in sunshine and watched as Connor struggled to finish a book that Harry would have torn through by now. There was joy and pleasure and pride in the memory, in knowing that his brother was so different from himself, and for the right reasons. When Connor finally tossed the book aside, and rolled over with a frown that became a grin when he saw Harry watching, Harry felt the love spike through his chest and beat against his mind with wings of flame.

Voldemort recoiled. Love was not an emotion he understood, even though he had used it before to manipulate people. He knew it existed, but it was like a human's understanding that the ways of a vampire hive existed; it did not mean he could think of it from the inside.

Connor held up a frog he'd caught in the pond at Godric's Hollow, and showed it to Harry. Unfortunately, he didn't hold it tight enough, and it leaped out of his hands with a croak and a plop that sent it straight back into the pond. Connor stamped his foot, and most of the water flew out of the pond and then settled back with a resounding crash, to splash the frog in turn. It had been Connor's first show of accidental magic. Harry had smiled at his brother's slack jaw and wide-open eyes, in the minute before Connor had turned and run back to the house, shrieking for Lily.

Voldemort scraped his claws along the bits of training Harry still had with his mother's name on them, but another memory stepped into his way.

It was only two years ago, and Connor and Harry had come to Lux Aeterna to spend the Easter holidays with James. Connor was telling their father off; if he hurt Harry again, then Connor would hurt him, badly. It was the product of ten months' thinking, the struggle Connor had gone through since the previous May to make himself see things from Harry's perspective and not be jealous of the title and the power that the Boy-Who-Lived name conferred on him.

Voldemort had never had anyone who would fight for him that way. Even Bellatrix's loyalty, the closest he had ever known to true love, had come to him because of his magic, and for no other reason.

Harry tore himself free, and could feel his body again, his arms and legs and his torso, though all of them were chilled and shivering from the ice around him. He opened his eyes, and saw the night blazing with the light of the Midnight Sun Charm, the vampires being wiped from existence one by one, the bodies or the limping of those he'd brought with him.

His brother's face.

Harry lashed out with his magic, barely pausing to distinguish the spells from one another, just knowing what he wanted done. Lash and lash and lash, and Snape and Honoria and the others were sent to Hogwarts's hospital wing, Apparated forcibly there. Lash and lash and lash, and the night filled with light, blazing, eliminating the last of the hive vampires who were pressing forward on the beach. They turned and stumbled, racing for the waves of the North Sea.

A few of them made it. Not many. Harry's magic took the form of hounds of fire, coursing on their trails, closing golden jaws on their heels and worrying at their robes, and where one tooth touched, their bodies went up in flames.

He grabbed his brother, held him close, and swung around to meet Vermillion's eyes. Shadows surrounded him and the three vampires who had come with him, rearing up to eat the light whenever it came close. His face was cool and unsmiling, but he inclined his head in a nod, a tiny nod, when he saw Harry looking at him.

"It was a trap, then," Harry said.

"For both of you," said Vermillion calmly. "We arranged to have the hive here so that Voldemort might incite your hatred and try to take you. But we made a promise to reveal the location of the queen to you, and we will." He nodded to the waves. "She is there, _vates_. In the sea. If you call powerful allies to your side, you might manage to kill her."

He turned back to Harry. "And we wished to see if you could defeat Voldemort when he invaded your mind. You have done so. The Dark Lord has not impressed us, and we will not ally with him." For a moment, his gaze slid sideways to Connor, and a faint smile lifted his lips. "His instructions to the hive to spare your brother, that he might have the pleasure of tormenting him later, were his downfall."

"I do not wish to make an alliance with you," Harry said flatly.

Vermillion laughed, briefly showing his fangs. "It is not your choice, _vates_. We will fight at your side, even if you will not fight at ours." He casually held up a hand, and shadow flared around him and the other three, gathering them up and whirling them away in what looked like one of the black whirlwinds Harry had called to set Peter, Regulus, and Snape free at the Ministry.

Harry closed his eyes and shook his head. _I think Vermillion would get along well with Evan Rosier._

He held Connor close against himself and whispered, "Thank you. You saved my life. All our lives."

Connor's smile and eyes were both bright in the darkness. "Just repaying the debt owed—how many hundreds of times over, Harry?" he muttered, nuzzling his head into his brother's shoulder. "Let's go."

Harry nodded, closed his eyes, and Apparated.

In his head, Voldemort had fallen silent.


	9. Indelible Signs

Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter!**  
**

**Chapter Six: Indelible Signs**

Draco's eyes weren't listening to him. He had commanded the room to stop being fuzzy when he opened them, but still his vision had a blurred, drifting white mist in front of it, and he couldn't move without black spots springing up to cloud the white.

"Draco."

That voice, at least, he knew, even though when he tried to whip towards it his head fell heavily back against the pillow. Harry sat up in the chair at the edge of the bed and gave him a weary smile. Reaching out, he squeezed Draco's hand. "You'll be all right," he murmured. "Madam Pomfrey's had a new stock of Blood-Replenishing Potions since—well, since I tried to free the thestrals, actually. It's one of the things Snape busied himself brewing. She had them on hand when I Apparated you back after the hive vampires bit you."

"That's what happened, then," Draco murmured. He really only remembered a cold body gripping him, and then a surge of heat in his neck. He raised his hand to touch the side of his throat, but Harry gripped his hand and shook his head.

"Madam Pomfrey says that you aren't to touch that," he said.

Draco snorted. "And you always do what Madam Pomfrey says?"

"In this case, yes." Harry's voice had become iron suddenly, hard as a vampire's grip, and Draco could make out the worry in his eyes. "Draco, every one of us was bitten except for Connor and me, and Snape and Honoria so badly that they're going to be weak for days." For a moment, his eyes darkened, and Draco opened his mouth to ask what was wrong, but Harry shook his head and moved briskly on, the moment vanishing. "I could have lost all of you last night."

"It was a trap, wasn't it?" Draco didn't really look forward to saying that he'd told Harry so, but if it had been a trap then, well, he'd told Harry so.

"Of a sort," Harry said. "Apparently, Vermillion and his friends were looking for the powerful wizard who'd protect them best against the Ministry, and they wanted to test us against each other and see who emerged victorious. They did help Voldemort set up the trap, but they warned me about the resting place of the queen, they took no part in the battle, and they told Connor what had happened when Voldemort attacked me through his hatred of him again."

Draco sat up this time, and damn the way his vision seemed to swirl and Harry clucked like an anxious chicken, anyway. "He tried to get at you again?" he demanded, clutching Harry's arm.

Harry gave him a bemused glance. "Of course he did, Draco. He's going to do that until I either devise a way to get him out of my head, or give in and go hunting him."

Draco shook his head. Harry didn't understand. _If he's allowed to worry about us when vampires nearly kill us, then we're allowed to worry about him when this madman tries to take over his mind. _"Harry, this can't continue. You understand that, don't you? More important than any other priority is making sure that Voldemort leaves your head so that you can concentrate on the war without having to mentally battle him."

Harry spread one hand, never taking his eyes from Draco. The silver dog's-head emblem in the center of his palm, a reminder of his encounter with Lady Death, winked and flashed as it caught the light. "And how would you suggest I do that, Draco? Occlumency doesn't work. Potions don't work. I— ah!"

He closed his eyes and bowed his head as his scar briefly glittered and seemed to open. Draco didn't think it looked like a well of blood so much as a chasm opening onto a flow of magma. Harry took several deep, quick, huffing breaths, as if he were wounded in the side.

Then he lifted his head, and shook it grimly. "Deaths," he whispered. "An initiation for new Death Eaters, or at least he wants me to think that's what's happening."

"This only proves my point," said Draco, and tightened his grip on Harry's wrists to the point where Harry would have to listen to him. "You need some way to guard your mind from him. First and foremost." He licked his lips, and ignored the way a net seemed to swing across the corners of his eyes, waiting to claim him. "Will you let me into your head, Harry? Let me possess you?"

Harry stiffened. "I don't want you that close to his Legilimency, Draco," he said.

"It's my choice to risk that."

"_No_."

Draco cocked an eyebrow. "If you don't want me invading your head, Harry, I can understand that. But if you're frightened because of what happened last night, and you don't want to expose me to the risk, then you'll need to get over that." He picked up Harry's right hand and turned it over so that he could kiss the spot where the blood beat. "We fight beside you in this war. Taking risks is my choice."

Harry closed his eyes. Then he gave a shallow nod.

Draco moved out of his head; his fragile state of consciousness actually made it easier, as his mind was eager to seek a body that wouldn't shake every time he made a hasty movement. He sank deep into the familiar confines of Harry's mind, and looked around, trying to see what form Voldemort's constant Legilimency took here.

He could see it almost at once. It really did look like a tunnel, a hole carving through the foliage of Harry's emotions, leading into an indefinable, misty distance. Red seamed it, and black, the colors of Dark compulsion magic. Draco could sense the slice of Voldemort's dominating will, lying along the surface of the tunnel, forming its roof and one of its walls.

But the other wall and the floor were Harry's to control. Draco saw that at once. If Harry turned around and pushed back at Voldemort, he could take over at least half the tunnel and read himself back into the confines of the Dark Lord's thoughts. Voldemort would probably shut down the connection then, Draco thought. He wouldn't want to risk Harry incapacitating him in the same way he had incapacitated Harry, or even reading his thoughts and knowing his plans.

But, of course, it wasn't a surprise that Harry had never done that. His Legilimency had always been poorer than his Occlumency. Legilimency relied on a dominating will, the urge to possess and control. The Dark Lord could outmatch him at it any day.

_Except that now, _Draco thought sadly as his eyes blinked open, _he will have to learn better than that._

He held Harry's hands tight, so he couldn't pull them away, as he explained what he'd discovered and what Harry would have to do. Sure enough, Harry tried to pull free and think about that alone. Draco gripped and hauled, and Harry let out a little grunt as he found himself half-sprawled on the bed.

"It has to be done," Draco whispered into his ear. "And because you summon the will once doesn't mean that you'll suddenly become an evil and dominating Lord, Harry. Yes, it's one step on a slippery road, but you don't have to ride that road all the way to the bottom. You can control yourself. I think all of us trust you enough for that. Even Snape manages to control himself when it comes to reading minds, and he's a much bitterer man than you'll ever be."

"I just—" Harry swallowed. "It's one thing to strike back at an enemy because he's just killed someone else, Draco. But I've never planned in cold blood to make a slave of someone else."

Draco could say nothing. Because Harry hated it, because his _vates _nature rebelled against it with his all his might, did not change the necessity of it. He stroked Harry's hair.

"Do you think this one action will make me fall from the _vates_ path?" Harry asked softly. "It could be enough, Draco. If I use compulsion _once_ against someone else, I tumble off."

Draco blinked. "But that's ridiculous," he said. "Or you would have fallen off the first time you used a Body-Bind on someone else after you became _vates_."

"It means mental compulsion," Harry murmured. "Forcing the changing of someone's mind and actions, the way that Connor can do, and Voldemort—the way that Dumbledore could, and Sirius." He swallowed. "And inflicting my will on someone else might be close enough to count."

"So you'd rather live with the headaches and visions that Voldemort inflicts on you?" Draco asked incredulously. He thought that was what Harry was saying, but he couldn't possibly be actually _saying_ it.

"Yes," Harry snapped, and twisted away from him. "If it's that, the choice between enduring some pain or losing my _vates _path, then I'll accept the pain, and even give Voldemort the means to enter my head himself."

"You're delusional," Draco hissed, and reached out to capture Harry's wrist. This time, Harry spun neatly, one of the motions he'd had trained into him from childhood, and avoided the touch without seeming to.

"I'll speak with you later," he said, and inclined his head to Draco as if they were little more than acquaintances, and left the hospital wing.

Draco punched the pillow behind him.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry hesitated for a long moment in front of the door to Snape's quarters. Madam Pomfrey had let him leave the hospital wing when he absolutely refused to lie still or stop criticizing the quality of the Blood-Replenishing Potions she'd chosen for him, and return to his own bed. Regulus, who had suffered only a small loss of blood, was taking care of him for right now. Harry wasn't sure it was the best course to ask Regulus to leave so that he could have a private talk with Snape.

But he had to. Snape had very nearly died; the low amount of blood in his veins could have drained out at any moment before Harry moved him to the hospital wing, and then it had only been a diagnostic spell Madam Pomfrey had performed which let her know that he and Honoria were the ones she needed to treat first.

Harry sighed, and rapped on the one portion of the door which contained no wards.

He heard shuffling, and then Regulus opened it, his face creasing in a warm, welcoming smile. "Come in, Harry," he said, stepping out of the way. "He's been asking for you, but he stopped when I let him know that you were still in the hospital wing, alive and well and watching the others."

"Thanks, Regulus," said Harry, entering. He stopped for a long moment and closed his eyes, preparing himself to endure both the coming confrontation and the sudden spike of pain in his skull. When it faded, he opened his eyes, and started. Regulus had come up and put his arm around his shoulders. So deep had Harry been in his own mind that he hadn't heard him moving.

"This was as hard on you as on any of us," Regulus whispered. "You don't need to pretend it wasn't, Harry."

Harry tossed his head uneasily and stepped away from the touch. He still didn't react well to embraces unless he had some time to prepare for them. "I need to speak to Snape in private, Regulus," he said. "Please. I have something to say that—well, he won't like to hear it."

"If you have come about what I suspect you have come about," Snape's voice said through the open door between sitting room and bedroom, "then you are right, I will not enjoy it."

Harry closed one hand into a fist for a moment, then looked at Regulus. Regulus opened his mouth, looking thoughtful, but Snape cut them both off. "Let him come in, Harry. Perhaps, with two voices rather than one, we can convince you of the ridiculousness of this idea soon enough."

_He doesn't even know what I was going to propose, _Harry thought, mutinous, but followed Regulus into the bedroom. Snape was sitting up in bed, which Madam Pomfrey would have wailed to see, though well-supported by pillows. His eyes focused on Harry's the moment he passed the door, and a bolt of Legilimency went home like an arrow.

Harry gasped and staggered, one hand rising to touch his scar. Snape's face softened. "My apologies," he said. "I did not realize the chaos that lingered inside your head." Then he gave Harry a long, hard stare. "All the more reason for you to be asleep, instead of sitting awake by all our beds, and for you to realize that I will not stop my participation in this battle."

Rattled, Harry began his speech less gracefully than he'd intended. "I—sir, you've lost so much to this war. You suffered under Voldemort's control for months, and I never noticed. And now your mind's been hurt, and you've nearly died _again_. Why should you have to sacrifice so much, personally, to this war when you've done so much to make up for your old mistakes? You've long since proved what kind of man you are: more than the Dark Mark on your arm. More than any possible 'redemption' Dumbledore might have tried to inflict on you. You don't have to keep doing this out of a misplaced sense of guilt."

Snape was silent for long moments. Then he said, "Regulus, leave us."

"Severus—"

"Do _not_ call me that!" That was the voice Harry knew from classes, from scoldings, from the man he'd confronted on top of the Astronomy Tower fifteen days ago. "Leave now, Regulus. I assure you, I won't hurt the boy, but we do have something to discuss."

Harry could feel Regulus lock eyes with Snape in a silent staring contest over his head. Then he sighed, and said, perhaps a bit petulantly, "_Fine_," and shut the door of the bedroom behind him on his way out.

Silence stayed in the room with them, and grew thicker and thicker. Harry locked his eyes on his clenched hands and waited.

"Harry," Snape said quietly. "I know that you don't think I've only stayed in the battle because I feel guilty for my past. You were in my mind on the Tower. You know how strong a part of this is my—" He paused, then forced the word from his lips as if he were spitting out poison. "_Love_ for you. Why did you approach me with that? Did you honestly think I would ever give up fighting at your side?"

"If I could insult you enough, yes," said Harry evenly.

"And you would not try to do this with anyone else?" Snape had a tone in the back of his voice that Harry couldn't quite make out. It might have been a cousin of amusement, but if so, Harry didn't want to hear the full-bodied thing. "That is insulting in its own way, Harry. Am I so fragile that I cannot bear the blows of war?" He moved, and Harry glanced up to see him pushing back his left sleeve, revealing the Dark Mark. "Do you _honestly_ believe that?"

"No," said Harry.

"Then you would not have tried this tactic on anyone else?"

"No, because it wouldn't have worked on them," Harry snapped.

Snape's eyebrows lifted. "Explain that if you would, Harry."

Harry rose and paced back and forth, restless, wondering if he could actually speak his mind without sounding stupid. Then he realized what he was thinking—as if Snape, like an enemy, would take his words and twist them, or use them as weapons to inflict wounds on him. Someone listening to his thoughts might well have thought he didn't trust Snape at all.

_But I do. Trust him, I mean. It's just—this is so important, and his situation is so different from anyone else's, and I know that he's not going to back off now, and I still prefer to hide some things rather than speak about them._

"Harry? I am waiting."

"You've lost so much," Harry whispered, talking, but stubbornly refusing to actually look at him. "More than anyone else, sir, across a longer span of years. I thought—when I saw you nearly die, I realized that. And I thought it was possible that if I could hit you with the right mixture of smothering concern and condescension, you'd withdraw from the war. I know that you'd never be completely safe, because Voldemort would still target you for what you are to me, but you could avoid going directly into battle and having things like this happen to you. It wasn't that I thought guilt was propelling you into this. It was that I thought you'd be angry enough at my _seeming_ to think that guilt was propelling you into this—"

"You've quite proven that you belong in Slytherin House already, Harry," Snape said. "I don't need this sort of demonstration."

Harry said nothing.

"Harry. Come here."

He thought about remaining on the other side of the room to spite Snape, and then perhaps Snape would be angry enough at him to accomplish Harry's original goal, but he was no longer sure that would work. And Snape did not ask again, but his eyes didn't waver from Harry's face, either.

Harry slowly crossed the room, and was beyond surprised when Snape's left arm curled around him in an awkward embrace and tugged him forward. He struggled for exactly as long as it took Snape to begin speaking.

"I made a vow to myself, Harry, to make my choice again and again from day to day, to insure that I did not simply wake up each morning and continue in the rut of an old allegiance," Snape whispered into his ear. "And that is what I am doing. If I ever decided to withdraw from the war, I would tell you. In the meantime, love and determination keep me here. It is not only pain."

"You almost died _again_, sir," Harry whispered, and felt the tears he hadn't been able to shed so far well up against his lids. They were tears of fury and frustration, born of the temptation to scream that Voldemort should just _stop_ and it wasn't _fair. _Harry swallowed them back again. Of course Voldemort wouldn't stop—another excess of fury in his scar reminded him of that—and of course it wasn't fair. "You've paid so much, so many prices. How can I ask that of anyone? How can I ask that your pain should increase, even?"

"You can ask it," said Snape calmly. "You can ask anything that you like, Harry. I am always free to refuse if I don't like the price. And you are free to do what you think should be done, for my good and the good of the war effort." He cupped his hand beneath Harry's chin and lifted his face, forcing Harry to meet his eyes. "That is why I am not angry at what you did. You manipulated me to stop the increase of my pain, and to spare yourself pain. But nothing will separate me from the war effort but my own choice—not love of you, not anger at you, not weariness."

"No one should have to bear what you have," Harry said softly.

"I could say the same thing of you." Snape's eyes glittered for a moment. "And were school in session, I might give you a detention for not realizing that. But it does not matter, Harry. What really, truly matters is that you realize that your manipulation does not work on me. I have known hard choices too long and too deeply to allow my emotions to lead me by the nose any more."

Harry closed his eyes, drew a deep breath, and nodded.

Snape's hand tightened on his shoulder for a moment, then let him go. "And now," he said, "you can make up for your attempt to manipulate me."

Harry blinked. "You said you weren't angry."

"Yes, but that doesn't mean that you were right to do it," said Snape remorselessly. "So you'll take some Dreamless Sleep so that you can rest, Harry, and be ready for the step that you've told me you're going to take tomorrow. The effects of the potion will wear off long before you need to make a speech, so don't use that as an argument. And you need the sleep more than you need the freedom from the haze, right now. Do not argue with me," he added, as Harry opened his mouth. "Or I _will_ call Regulus back in and repeat everything that you said to him."

Harry sighed. He would get a scolding from Regulus as he had, unexpectedly, not received one from Snape, and he didn't think that he could bear that right now. "I'll take the potion, sir."

"Good." Snape's arm curled around him again, and dragged Harry back to rest against his shoulder. For a moment, just a moment, Harry closed his eyes and let himself take pleasure, comfort, even rest in the strength of that hold, and not think about the fragility of the heart that beat beneath it.

SSSSSSSS

"Harry."

Draco knew from the tension in Harry's shoulders that his partner had heard him. He didn't look around, though, only turned and studied himself critically in the mirror that hung on the wall of their bedroom. Harry had conjured it, and he would surely banish it again the instant he was done with it, Draco knew.

The robes he wore resembled the ones he'd worn more than a year ago to Draco's confirmation festival as a magical heir. They were dark green, and glittered with silver symbols on the bottom that melted and dashed and dodged and darted in and out of each other, snakes becoming runes becoming small ovals fringed with lines like eyelashes. Draco knew that some of the symbols proclaimed Harry as the heir of the Black line, and another, a circle with thirteen points of which five were connected, said that he was in a joining ritual of which five rituals had been completed.

"I suppose that will have to do," Harry murmured, and the mirror vanished.

"Harry, I wanted to talk to you," said Draco, and took a firm step forward.

"I have to go outside the school now," Harry said, lifting his head. "You know that I have to, Draco. When I ordered the golden bubbles to travel from wizarding village to wizarding village, I also ordered them to say that I would accept the help of anyone who wanted to give it at Hogwarts, on Midsummer afternoon. That means that I have to wear these robes, and make a certain speech, and accept an oath from anyone who wants to give it."

"And hate every minute of it," Draco muttered.

Harry's shoulders shifted. "I know that I need help to fight him, Draco. I don't hate that."

"No. Just the other things, the things that anyone else would take pleasure in." Draco stepped forward and clasped Harry's face with his hands, holding him when he would have withdrawn. "And I wanted to say that I _do_ understand why you hate them, Harry, and why you don't want to use Legilimency on Voldemort. I never thought you should do it simply because I said so."

Harry blinked, and a shadow that had been in his eyes since their argument in the hospital wing yesterday vanished. Harry gave a single, shallow nod, gaze locked on Draco's. "Then why?"

"Because I would rather see you alive and healthy and doing something you hate than dead or broken mentally," said Draco, and pulled Harry against him. He tried desperately to ignore the scent of Harry's hair and the softness of his neck. He wanted to kiss and lick and suck, throw Harry down on the bed and do all the things they hadn't had the time to do lately—he was determined not to let their partnership become a casualty of the war. But they really didn't have time now, any more than they had at another hour of the day. Harry had to make a formal presentation, and he had to look the part. He'd dressed up in the robes even though he hated them, because it was what people would expect, and it added to the symbolic force of the role he played. Draco couldn't ruin that for him. "And I don't think that using Legilimency on Voldemort would count as forsaking your vows to be _vates_, not when he's already tortured or killed or otherwise stepped on the free wills of so many other people."

Harry stirred in Draco's arms, but didn't make an attempt to shrug off the hold, for which Draco was grateful. "I _hate_ this," he said softly, with a passionate loathing in his voice that made Draco shiver, and feel grateful it would never be directed at him. "Being in control. I can put up with rituals and dances and special robes and all the rest of it when I know that I'm an equal among equals. But this—" He plucked at the sleeve of his robe as if it were made of spiderwebs. "I don't _want_ this, not when it says that I stand above other people, and have the right to command them."

"You hate giving orders," Draco murmured.

"Yes. I've barely reconciled myself to it inside battle situations, and now—" Harry's hands tugged at the sleeve of his robe again. "Now I'm saying that I have the right to give them. The robes claim that right."

"But you put them on anyway."

Harry met his eyes, his own wide and desolate. "I know what has to be done," he muttered. "I know that there are many people who will follow me if I show that I'm willing to tell them what to do some of the time. They can't gain the strength and the confidence to make their own decisions without knowing what other people are also doing, and so I need to coordinate those decisions. They can't act in isolation. And they can gain strength and courage knowing I'm behind them, even if I'm not physically present at every battle." He folded his arms. "They're used to the way Lords act, whether or not I call myself by that name. So acting that way some of the time is the easiest way to win this war.

"I'll do it. But I hate it."

Draco smiled and kissed the back of Harry's neck, letting Harry feel the smile against his skin. "Harry," he said quietly.

"What?"

"The very fact that you hate it means that you'll watch your own behavior more vigilantly, and you have a very slim chance of becoming what Voldemort is, or Dumbledore was." Draco stepped back and met his gaze again. "You're right. This will calm and inspire people, and it's easier than arguing with every single person who wants to ally with you. It doesn't _hurt_ them. Or do you think that Connor's status, when he was the Boy-Who-Lived, would have hurt someone who wanted to follow him?"

Harry's mouth, opening to voice a protest, shut with a snap. Draco nodded and tugged at his hair. "It's not the behavior that worries you, then, so much as the person doing it. And we've discussed before, Harry, how silly it is to think that you're the exception to all rules and can somehow cause people pain through a behavior that wouldn't cause pain if anyone else did it. So do relax."

"Thank you, Draco," Harry said, and turned, and pulled him into one fierce kiss before he exited their bedroom with a determined stride.

Draco blinked and touched his flushed cheek, then shrugged. It wouldn't do for Harry to arrive at the ceremony completely mussed, but he supposed it wasn't such a problem for Harry's lover. His major part today was to stand behind Harry, and if he grinned like an idiot while he did it, that was acceptable.

SSSSSSSSSS

Harry's mind was busy with past Midsummers as he strode towards the ring of people waiting near the Forbidden Forest.

A year ago, the ground had been littered with corpses. Today, the sun stormed across the sky as if to deny that any such thing had ever happened, and the people slowly turning to face Harry were all alive.

Two years ago, it had been dark in the graveyard and blood-red with the loss of his hand. Today a left hand swung on the end of his wrist again, even if it _was_ the one marked with the silver emblem of Lady Death.

And today he had something to do that would have horrified him more, ahead of time, than either of those things. He could face pain, and loss, and death. He could face a battle where he had planned every movement and knew that some casualties would occur on his side, but that those of the Death Eaters were likely to be far greater.

He was not so sure he could face a ceremony that led him so far towards becoming something he hated.

Ancient Lords and Ladies had not all gathered their companions in silence and secrecy, the way that Voldemort had done with the Death Eaters and Dumbledore had done with the Order of the Phoenix. Some of them had sent out public calls, especially if they were of the Light, and told anyone who wanted to follow them in no uncertain terms what would be expected of them and why they wanted companions. Harry had followed that tradition with his golden bubbles, and that would be what had pulled some of the people here now to him: the following of tradition, the comforting familiarity. Harry could not expect them to jump headlong at the idea of serving someone who did _everything_ differently.

But then, how far could he walk along this road before his similarities to a Lord _became_ Lordship? Draco and Snape might have faith in him to avoid that fate forever, but Harry had swung on the abyss above his hatred of Voldemort. He knew things about himself that he never wanted to share with them. He had learned the first of them in the Chamber of Secrets when Sylarana died, that he was capable of wishing death on his brother and his parents, and now—

But there was no other way.

_Or there is, and you didn't think hard enough to find it._

That would always be the specter haunting the back of his mind, in battle as well as out of it, Harry thought. He forced himself, now, to concentrate on the people in front of him, and give a small smile. If he could walk the thin line between love and hatred, knowing Voldemort could snatch him at any moment, surely he could walk a similarly thin line between formal ceremony and actual domination.

He spread his hands and called an ivory platform from the ground, letting it rise beneath him and lift him up. That was another part of a Calling ceremony like this: Lords and Ladies used their magic as a demonstration of their strength and why they were worthy to lead willing recruits. Harry actually didn't mind this part, since it eased the pounding pain in his head.

"Thank you for coming," he said, turning the air sideways so that it would bear his voice better than any other sound. "I wish you to know exactly what I am, and what I am offering. The only formal name I will claim, for now, is Harry. I belong to no family save that which I choose to honor. The man who sired me and the woman who bore me have no claim on my loyalty, and though my father's line was Light pureblood, I have no loyalty to the Light purebloods above all else. I am _not_ of that heritage.

"I call myself _vates_. That means walking the path of freedom, offering freedom to magical creatures as the most bound of us all, but also to wizards and witches who join me. It also means voluntary limitation, because at some points one's actions begin to intrude on the freedom of others. For me, it means not claiming every honor I could, not commanding or compelling others, not taking advantage of opportunities that would harm others, and not benefiting from the service of enslaved species such as house elves. What one chooses not to do is just as important as what one chooses to do.

"I call myself legal heir of the Black line, with the permission of its blood and legal descendant, Regulus Black." His eyes sought out Regulus's where he stood in the front of the crowd, and Regulus sent him a warm smile. "That gives me access to the fortunes of a Dark pureblood heritage. I acknowledge this tie and claim it mine.

"I call myself the Boy-Who-Lived, the war leader of an effort against Voldemort." Many still flinched at that name, but not as many as he had expected. Harry wondered if it had anything to do with the set masks of many faces, showing those, like the Weasleys, who had lost family members to Voldemort and had resolved to be angry rather than afraid. "I say that I will fight him until he is dead or I die. I ask others to follow me in that fight. If you agree, I will arrange local networks of defense, including arranging teaching of defensive magic and Dark Arts for those who want it. Or you may remain with me, if that is your decision, and go to battles all around Britain. Whether you defend a beloved home or defend the principles on which this war effort stands, you are welcome."

He paced slowly back and forth on the platform, meeting pair after pair of eyes, and holding them until they fell or the person nodded back to him. All the Weasleys were there—or all the remaining Weasleys, at least—and Augusta Longbottom, Neville's grandmother, standing with her hand on his shoulder. Luna leaned against her father. Dionysus Hornblower stood in the background, taking numerous photos. Priscilla Burke, Thomas's wife, and his children were there as well, and Thomas waved madly to Harry before turning to scribble down something on the scroll he held. Owen and Syrinx stood in front of the platform, chins high with exultant pride. It was something, Harry supposed, to be able to say that they had followed and honored all these principles Harry was talking about long before this meeting.

"How you choose to commit is up to you," Harry continued calmly. "I will brand those who wish it with the lightning bolt." He had never tasted words so foul, but he made himself say it. _I will always hate this, but they need it. _"I will match those who ask with dueling teachers. I will be grateful to accept those with specialized skills into specialized positions. But I ask for a _commitment._ If, after hearing me say this, you no longer wish to join the fight against Voldemort, I ask you to leave now."

A few people Apparated away from the crowd, but not many. Harry nodded. "Then who will be the first to come forward?" he asked.

To his surprise, it was Augusta Longbottom. Neville walked beside her, but Harry was sure it was the old witch's decision to come to him. Her eyes never wavered from his face, and there was a deep resolve in her expression that reminded Harry of Laura Gloryflower.

"_Vates_," she said. The hideous purple vulture on her hat bobbed as she gave him a slow nod. "I must ask if you are serious about the announcement you made a short time ago, that you would fight for the rights of those witches and wizards who are half-human but have had to hide their heritage."

Harry blinked. "Yes, madam. I am."

Augusta nodded once more, then whispered, "_Finite Incantatem._"

A glamour charm so old and deep that Harry hadn't sensed it ripped off her in strips and dropped away. He blinked again when he saw her eyes alter color to a deep green, and her face push outward into a cat-like muzzle. Gray dapples appeared as well, lying like shadows along her skin, rosettes that passed under her clothing. She turned, and Harry saw the weight of a golden, similarly spotted tail swaying behind her.

Amid exclamations of shock, the clearest sound, to Harry, was Neville's voice whispering, "Grandmother?"

Augusta smiled fiercely down at him and stroked his hair. "I am still myself, Neville. And still a Longbottom." She looked up at Harry. "My parents went on a honeymoon to South America soon after they were married," she said calmly. "They chose a bad time to visit the Peruvian Vipertooth reserve, though—just after some of them broke free. During the dragons' stampede, my parents were separated. My father found his wife, or a woman he thought was his wife, and stayed with her a few days. Then she vanished, and the next morning he found his wife wandering lost in the jungle."

Harry cocked his head. "Werejaguar?" Given the signs on Augusta's skin and the tale she told, that was the only explanation he could think of.

Augusta nodded. "Werejaguars," she explained, to Neville's staring face, "are sentient jaguars who can take the form of humans when they wish. They once lived in close contact with both wizards and Muggles, before the Spanish conquest, and were worshipped as gods. And they are very, very good at glamour charms, illusions, and shadow magic—as they should be, when they can hide in plain sunlight. My mother took on the form of my father's wife for a time, because she wished to, and then changed back to her own form and bore me. Two years later, I showed up on my father's doorstep in England." She shook her head slightly. "I don't remember much of the two years my mother kept me, but my father claimed me and bound me magically as heir to the Longbottom line. And all my life, I have learned to hide what I am." She nodded to Harry. "You could change that. I wish to see it changed. My heritage does not give me as much trouble as some others have, but I am of the Light. I detest subterfuge and deception, and I have lived a lie. Now that I know you will fight for half-humans like me, _vates_, I am prepared to swear." She drew her wand. "_Votum ignigena!_"

Gold spread from her palm, a welling line that reminded Harry for an eerie moment of his own scar, and the way it looked when it first opened and began to bleed. It did not resemble fire, though the incantation called it that. This was the warm color of lamplight, or of the wings of the gryphon Harry had seen last Midwinter when the Light answered Fawkes's sacrifice. Augusta Longbottom knelt, with difficulty, and then looked up at Harry.

"I would give the Fire Oath," she said. "It Transfigures some of my blood to fire, and passes my promise to you. I swear to follow you, to be loyal, to struggle against Voldemort in such ways as I can without injuring my honor. Should I break my promise, then the rest of my blood ignites, and that is the end of me. Do you accept this promise, _vates_?"

Harry would have said no even a year ago, he knew. And now he could not. He had to rely on others, as he'd told himself on the Astronomy Tower. He had to let other people fight beside him if they willed it, and in the ways they desired. He'd had that brought home to him again after Snape's speech about how it would be his own choice, and only that, that would make him leave the war effort.

"I accept," he breathed.

The yellow line of light lashed like a whip across Augusta's palms, and then down her right arm. Harry found himself smiling faintly. _Of course. A Dark Lord marks the left forearm, but Light Lords more often marked the right._

When the light went out, Augusta bore a faint, round burn in the center of each palm, and a burn shaped like a lightning bolt on her right forearm. She nodded to Harry and stood slowly, creakily. "I think my grandson has something to say to you," she said, and then put a hand on Neville's shoulder and pushed him forward.

Neville stumbled a bit—Harry thought he was still taken by surprise that Augusta carried werejaguar blood in her veins—but he lifted his head proudly when he saw Harry looking at him.

"I want to help, Harry," he said. "I know I'm not always the best wizard, but I'm good in Herbology, and I've been learning the proper spells from you and Moody, and—I want to help." He ended by chewing his lip, as if he wondered whether he should have said something more specific.

Harry smiled and nodded. "You can, Neville. I know that you were working on plants that could counter Indigena Yaxley's vines. I'm putting you in charge of that. Develop as many plants as you can that you think could help defend people, either from an attack or from her specific weapons like her poisons and her thorns."

Neville's face brightened. "Thank you, Harry!"

Harry gently steered him back to his grandmother, and then, as the Longbottoms moved off, he stood in silence again, waiting for the next claimant. He didn't need to wait long, though.

A cloaked woman in the front row moved forward, and lowered her hood the moment she was in front of Harry. Harry blinked. He would not have expected Lazuli Yaxley here; he had thought it would be too Light for her, or, at the very least, too public.

Of course, she walked the paths of Light as well as Dark. Harry supposed that could lead to a double allegiance. And she might always have meant to make her alliance with Harry public.

"My lady," he said. "What form of commitment will you make to me?"

"One based on the future," Lazuli answered. Her eyes were colder than those of anyone Harry had ever met, but he knew the reason. Every single day was a battle for her, against pain and for the consequences of her choice: the half-human daughter, Jacinth, she'd borne to some completely inhuman thing she met in the paths. "I wish to fight beside you. My sister Indigena knows of magic I will never possess. But it is her will that makes her dangerous. If she were all ambition and dreams and no determination, she would never have changed the world. I wish to change it back, Harry, to act as her counterbalance." She made his first name sound as formal as any title, and when she dropped into a kneeling posture, she did it without a trace of actual submissiveness. "Do I have your permission to join you?"

"Of course," Harry said. "And what mark will you take?"

"The snake."

Harry frowned. The snake had been a symbol of several Dark Lords, sometimes by itself and sometimes as part of a Mark like the one Voldemort used. "I use a lightning bolt, my lady, even when I take a sworn companion, and that is the most extreme form of marking I give."

"I realize this," said Lazuli. "But you have no one else in your train, I believe, Harry, who is doing this to oppose a member of her family. Those of your allies who have experienced a split in their blood—" her eyes tracked towards Draco, who stood beside him, and Millicent, on the right side of the platform "—have done so through no fault of their own. I wish the snake as an ouroboros, the snake that feeds on its own tail and so comes back to its own beginning, to show that what one member of my family begins, another must finish."

Harry hesitated again, but he had said that he would do this, even as he hated it. Lazuli was hardly trying to make him like this, only do it.

"Hold out your left arm," he whispered.

She did, and he winced at the chewed look of it revealed as her sleeve fell back. But she had chosen this. Harry placed his hand in the center of the thickest part of her arm and closed his eyes, trying to picture a serpent eating its own tail that would be appropriate for this very dangerous and very strong-willed woman.

The mark that materialized in his mind was not, perhaps, the most appropriate—once again he felt that he could have thought of something better, if only he'd _thought_—but his magic seized it and guided it into Lazuli's flesh before Harry could decide on a different one. He lifted his hand, and Lazuli looked without expression at the gray-black snake eating its tail on her arm. The scales were the color of her daughter's, and the serpent's yellow eyes resembled Jacinth's, as well.

"I'm—" Harry began.

"You remember the color of her scales," said Lazuli, and there was something in her voice that made Harry shut his mouth with a harsh click.

Never taking her eyes off the serpent, Lazuli stood and retreated. Harry shook his head, and then had to smile at the Weasleys, who were coming forward as a body. He had the feeling that he'd just been offered a declaration of loyalty deeper and richer than many he would know, but Lazuli had used no words for it beyond the ones she'd already spoken, and so he didn't know its exact nature.

"We wish to help you, Harry," Mr. Weasley said, drawing his attention. His face was pale and drained, but he looked less tired than he had at Percy's funeral. Harry found himself remembering that this man had always been nice to Connor, to the point of sheltering him during that horrible summer between fourth and fifth years when their parents' trial was beginning. "We're always Light wizards, we've never followed a Dark leader, but we've decided that you're Light enough for us."

"Even though such a burden should never have fallen on a child so young," Mrs. Weasley said, and then sniffled and patted at her cheeks with a handkerchief.

Harry nodded to them, and then glanced at the two Weasleys he knew the least, the two eldest sons. He'd met Bill only once, on his visit to the Burrow just after his parents had been arrested, and Charlie not at all. Bill's face was grim, as though he carried the shadow of Percy's death in his heart, and Charlie had a frightening intensity about his eyes.

"_We_ want to become sworn companions," said Bill.

Harry blinked. "But—" he said intelligently, and stopped.

"What about our jobs?" Charlie had a soft voice, or perhaps he was only making it soft so that he wouldn't break into a shout. Harry gave him a cautious nod. Charlie snorted, and lowered his voice a bit. "I suppose you know that I'm a Dragon-Keeper in Romania, Harry?" Harry nodded again, and Charlie's smile turned predatory. "Do you have _any_ idea what it means to me, that you've shown yourself willing to fight for the rights of magical creatures, and try to preserve the freedom of dragons instead of binding or killing them?"

"And I work with goblins," Bill added, turning his head so that the fang-shaped earring swung. "It's the same for me, Harry. You're one of the few wizards I've met who treats them like real people. And they're perfectly willing to spare me for a while, so that I can help you."

Harry licked dry lips. "All right. You'll need to kneel and bare your left forearms, and we'll need something that cuts."

Bill casually pulled a knife from his belt. Harry felt Draco tense behind him, but Bill drew the blade across his own arm, and Draco relaxed, perhaps, just a fraction. Harry would have smirked at him if the occasion hadn't been so solemn.

"I pledge my loyalty," Bill said, his voice calm and clear as he passed the knife to Charlie. "I pledge my constancy, and my faith. I pledge my knowledge of goblins and the breaking of curses to help you if possible. I pledge to put your safety above my own, and to guard you with my life."

Charlie made the same oath, only substituting dragons for goblins, before Harry could object. He supposed that there wasn't much he could say that wouldn't disregard the solemnity of their oath anyway. He hesitated a moment, then gave his answer.

"I pledge back to you my loyalty, my constancy, and my faith. I will call on your knowledge and your magical strength to help me in my battles, but never ask of you more than you can give. While I live, you shall never lack for my strength if you need it."

The blood welling from the cuts on Bill's and Charlie's cuts sizzled, and the lightning bolt scars sprang into relief. The scar on Harry's forehead gave a harsh, high throb, but Harry ignored Voldemort as best he could. Just because the mark had originally been the sign of his having survived the Killing Curse didn't mean Harry couldn't transform the sign and make it his own.

Fred and George were the next to approach, both their faces cast in an iron mold. "Harry, you'll have—"

"Any of our products you need. Some of them are—"

"Better in battle than as jokes. I'll not deny that we—"

"Invented them with that in mind. And after poor Perce—"

"We only ask for battle," they finished, and then stood looking expectantly at him.

"Thank you both," Harry murmured, which seemed to be all they were waiting for. He turned to Ron and Ginny, curious as to what they wanted. Ron was an adult now, but Ginny wasn't. Their parents might argue for them both to make the same commitment of defense the elder Weasleys were making, but nothing more.

Ron met his gaze and held it, in a way that Harry couldn't look away from. "I want to fight," he said. "Take me with you into battle."

Harry eyed him for a moment, and then stifled a shudder. Ron's magic boiled around him like a leashed cat, dangerously near to developing a life of its own. It would if it were confined much longer. It was best to let him work off that dangerous energy in battle, and it wasn't as though they would have a shortage of them in this war.

"I'll do it," he said. "Do you want to stay at Hogwarts for the summer holidays?"

Mrs. Weasley offered a little sob, but Ron didn't even glance at his parents. "Yes," he said. "Just in case a battle happens and I would miss it otherwise."

Harry nodded, then glanced at Ginny.

"I can't fight beside you all the time yet, for—obvious reasons." Ginny glared at her mother, who pretended not to notice. "But I want to help train people. I've been reading up on the theory behind Defense Against the Dark Arts, and I know a lot of the spells that Moody and you showed us in the dueling club by name and incantation and wand movement, even if I can't perform them all. I can at least show people what to do. You said that you needed dueling teachers, to teach local wizards and witches how to protect themselves. I want to do that."

Harry felt his face relax into a smile. He had been wondering where he would find teachers, since most of the people around him—Moody included—wanted to fight with him instead of stay behind and instruct. Ginny's youth would actually help him in this case, since Mr. and Mrs. Weasley didn't want her fighting yet. "Thank you, Ginny. I accept that offer. Would you like to stay at Hogwarts as well?"

"Ginny will be staying at the Burrow," Mr. Weasley cut in.

Harry winced. _I don't like this, either, and I don't have to. _He faced Mr. Weasley directly. "That will make it hard for her to travel around and teach others as she needs to," he said quietly. "Hogwarts is heavily-warded; she'll be safe here. And it's a central location where people can learn and then take the knowledge back home. I know that you can defend the Burrow, Mr. Weasley, and Ginny too, but not everyone is that lucky."

Mrs. Weasley bowed her head. "I don't want her to go," she whispered. "Ginny's so young still."

"Not so young, Mum," said Ginny, and her voice was gentler than Harry would have believed it could be. It reminded him of the way he used to talk to Lily. "And if you forbid me to do it, I'll do it anyway, like I ran away to Woodhouse and fought the vampires in the Forest a few nights ago. I _need_ to do this, and I'll be good at it, and Harry can use the help."

"Ginny," Mr. Weasley said, drawing her attention. "Do you really want to do this?"

Ginny lifted her chin and nodded. Her father watched her for a moment more, then sighed and drew his wife into his arms. "We have to let her go, Molly," he whispered. "And just because she's not seventeen yet doesn't—mean anything. It didn't mean anything when we were growing up, either, you remember. Children younger than Ginny were becoming Death Eaters, and casting the Killing Curse. At least she's chosen the right side."

Mrs. Weasley began to cry. Ginny touched her mother on the back, then faced Harry. "I'll be staying at Hogwarts."

Harry nodded to her, then faced the rest. Other people he didn't know, or had only heard of by reputation, were coming forward now, Dark families and Light, some of them half-human, some of them people who had given up their house elves, some of them people who had written him letters earnestly pledging support.

He collected oaths from some of them, but not nearly as many as he had feared. Many of them were interested in becoming better duelists so that they stood some chance of defending their families or home villages from a Death Eater attack. Others, often older witches and wizards who had attended Hogwarts years ago, wanted to teach, and to talk with Harry about what spells would be most useful. Others volunteered their services as liaisons between Harry and the wizarding villages, able to cast the phoenix-song communication spell already and quickly and neatly summarize a dangerous situation and the strengths and weaknesses of the people they knew.

Halfway through the afternoon, Harry had to blink and realize that he had the beginnings of a defensive structure growing up around him, something like an army but not nearly as hateful, and that so far the oaths he accepted and the orders he issued didn't seem to have hurt anyone. His biggest personal danger was a sore throat from all the talking he was doing.

_Perhaps—perhaps—_

_Perhaps I'm still distinguishable from a Lord after all._


	10. The Order of the Firebird

Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter!

**Chapter Seven: The Order of the Firebird**

"I know it's not the same," Connor whispered as he launched the paper boat into the water, and then wondered who he was talking to—sun, or sand, or sky, or sea. "But I wanted to celebrate this anyway."

He stepped back as the boat glided away, bobbing and then tumbling on the swells. The sand beneath his feet rasped softly—the sand of the beach where James had brought him and Harry twice on Midsummer to continue a ritual that the Potters had completed since the beginning of time, essentially. Connor hadn't returned last year, though that was mostly because of the battle. And today he hadn't sent the boat off at dawn, as the ritual strictly called for. But that didn't matter as much as completing the ritual on the same day, he thought, even if it was almost noon now, and the sun was high enough to cast multiple trails of dazzling light across the water, not just one.

"We came from the east," he said, and shook his head when the words seemed to clank, falling around him like limp chains. _Who came? James doesn't have the magic to be considered part of the family line anymore, and Harry isn't a Potter._

Of course, that didn't mean the Potters were gone. There was still him.

Connor frowned. _I don't think I care for the sensation of being the sole support of a bloodline. It's lonely._

He kept his eyes on his boat, watching the tiny parchment sail flutter bravely as it crested one wave, and then another. It probably sank eventually, but not before it vanished. Connor smiled. He could live with the vision of the ship passing unharmed into the future, even if it sank a short time later.

Turning, he waded out of the shallow water and back onto the beach. Peter, who had brought him, nodded and smiled at him. "Are you ready to practice Apparating?" he asked.

"Ready or not, I need to be," Connor said. "Thanks for bringing me here."

"Of course," said Peter, his eyes softening. "I would have done it anyway, Connor, you realize, whether or not this was Midsummer, once you told me that you wanted to practice."

Connor didn't say that he'd been waiting for Peter to recover somewhat from the effects of the vampire bites before he suggested Apparition practice, or that he actually preferred this day, since it gave him something to do while Harry was busy gathering his army. He had briefly considered participating in the ceremony, but it would have made him feel too strange to swear an oath to his own twin, even if he _was_ the last Potter and thus the last representative of an important Light pureblood family. He wanted to do something else, and learning to Apparate would ultimately benefit both Harry and the war they were trying to fight.

"Thanks," he told Peter again. "What's the first step?"

"You need concentration," said Peter. "It's impossible to Apparate to a place that you can't imagine, whether that's because someone's described it to you or you know it. Look at that place up the beach, for example, next to that piece of driftwood." He waved his wand, and a white log glittered and caught the light of a _Lumos_ charm. "Do you think you can know it from this distance?"

"I suppose," Connor said doubtfully, squinting. His eyes weren't bad, especially given that he had to chase a Snitch around in all sorts of weather, but he had never before tried to fix a nondescript location so firmly in his mind. He could more easily have Apparated to a place like Gryffindor Tower. He tried, now, to memorize the particular way the driftwood bent and the small shadow it cast on the sand, while being sure that it was a losing battle.

"Good, then," Peter whispered, his voice soft, lulling. Connor felt himself slip almost into a trance as Peter's hand gripped his shoulder and guided him around. "Now, face the driftwood. All you want is to get there. There's a distance between you and it, one that shouldn't be there. Do you see the distance?"

"Yes." Connor eyed the stretch of sand unenthusiastically. It really shouldn't be there, should it? He should possess the magic to cross it and land next to the log if he wanted without using his feet. It wasn't worth the time it would take to cross it using his feet.

"Good," Peter murmured. "Now. Can you feel your magic boiling up, answering the call of your will?"

"Yes," Connor whispered again. The stretch of sand grew more hateful as he glared at it. Why _was_ it there? Why couldn't he have already been at the driftwood? It really shouldn't exist.

"Good," Peter said a third time. "Now, can you make the leap to the driftwood? It ought to be a simple thing, given how much you want it, and how short the distance is."

Connor snorted. "Of course it should be."

He called on his magic, and the driftwood seemed to shine as he summoned it closer. He saw it tremble, and realized with a frown that that wasn't right. He didn't want to pull the driftwood off whatever invisible support in the sand it rested on. A moment later, though, he understood.

He relaxed the pull of his magic, and instead of thinking that he wanted the driftwood to come to him, he went to the driftwood.

The world around him turned to black, dizzying nothingness, squeezing and rolling him up as if in a tube. But Connor had known this before, and he didn't panic. If this was the best way to eliminate that unnatural distance between himself and the driftwood, then he would use it.

He came out with a sharp stagger next to the bend of the driftwood. But the projecting limbs didn't hurt him, because he'd carefully planned where he should alight. The distance made sense when he was on the patch of sand in its shadow, and could catch himself on one of the branches with his right hand.

"Well _done_, Connor!"

Connor blinked and glanced up, to see Peter applauding from a good distance down the beach, looking as small from this angle as the driftwood log had from his position a few minutes ago. Hesitantly, he lifted a hand and waved back, still recovering from the shock of suddenly having everything be as it should, with him next to the log and the distance crossed.

And then it really hit him. He'd _Apparated_. And he hadn't Splinched himself, either, as a careful look down at his body showed. Connor threw back his head and laughed in exultation.

Peter came up to him a few moments later, looking somewhere between smug and pleased. "That's the best technique to use, I think," he murmured, his hand resting on Connor's shoulder. "Others tell you to be aware of your body at all times, so that you don't leave a piece behind or send one ahead when you leap, but that only adds an extra layer of anxiety to the process that I don't think anyone really needs. It's much better to concentrate on the place, and make irritation one of the forces of magic that answers your needs."

"It is," Connor agreed, though he knew he might only be saying that because the method was the one that had worked for him. But so what? He was allowed to like it because it worked. He gave Peter a hug he could no more have resisted giving than he could have resisted anger at the driftwood when he realized it wasn't where it was supposed to be. "Can we try to make it faster this time?"

"Of course," said Peter, and squeezed him in turn, and then stepped away to direct Connor's attention to the place at the edge of the beach where they'd stood a few moments before his Apparition.

_My first successful Apparition. The first of many more._

Grinning like a fool, Connor forced himself to attend closely to what Peter was saying.

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

_This is a most unusual invitation._

Indigena tapped the folded parchment against her wrist, keeping her face calm as she considered the house in front of her. Of course she'd visited it before, but she hadn't come here since her mother died. She had had Thornhall as her rightful inheritance, and, more importantly, the gardens and greenhouses that surrounded Thornhall. She had no reason to come to Briar-Rise.

Yet here she was again, and here the house was, quiet and resting, wound with spells to defeat Muggles that included ones to make them fall asleep when they came in sight of it. It was denser and darker than Thornhall, built of a black stone that Indigena had never seen elsewhere, but with the individual blocks faceted and made to hook into each other like pieces of an intricate puzzle. The windows were enormous black portals, without shutters or curtains, but with spells to insure that someone standing outside couldn't use them to spy on those inside. Black canes of briars framed the windows and acted as decorations on the walls and roof of the house, but Indigena could feel no empathy for them. They were purely magical, artificial, not the living plants that she'd devoted so much time to caring for in Thornhall.

And yet her sister had issued her an invitation to visit it.

Indigena began to walk. It was Midsummer Day, which meant a very great deal of sun, and the leaves and petals curled under her skin rejoiced in it even if she didn't. The tendrils in her hair writhed high, licking at the light, quivering now and then in joy that had Indigena reluctantly smiling as she pressed her hand flat against Briar-Rise's door.

For a moment, the door sparked, and the symbol of the Yaxley family appeared: a black thorn tree against a rising full moon, with the family motto floating below in dark letters. _Vita desinit, decus permanit._

Then the symbol died, and the door swung open with a faint click. Indigena saw no house elf on the other side, or human. Of course not. Her sister had let her house elves go when she allied herself with Harry.

She felt her way forward, through corridors in which wards guided her, creating a narrow aisle in the midst of the magic down which she could pass. Indigena shook her head. Lazuli was trying mightily to convince Indigena that she was powerful and didn't fear her sister. That only filled Indigena with sadness and irritation. _I have honor to compel me to serve my Lord. What has sent her to Harry's side? Worry over the future of her daughter, not something so high as honor._

She ended up at last in the biggest room of the house, a library like a pit, with multiple hearths facing each other in which magical fires blazed, one red, one blue, and one green. The room was octagonal, or possibly shaped like a heptagon; the presence of bookshelves all along the walls kept Indigena from getting an accurate count of their numbers. The walls curled with briars like a forest, but once again they were carved and painted, and the black of the stones was overwhelming. Indigena sniffed. The place could have done with living plants, if only to cheer up the color scheme a bit.

Lazuli stood in front of a window, gazing out. She had her back to Indigena, but Indigena would have known her sister in a crowd of a hundred similar women. No one else had that stiffness to the neck, the curve that permanent pride created. When she turned around and met her eyes, Indigena was ready for the coldness that lingered there, the utterly inflexible lines of her face.

"Sister," said Lazuli.

"Lazuli," Indigena returned, because she didn't feel like giving the intimate title to a woman who opposed her. "I don't suppose you would care to explain this?" She held up the invitation.

"Sit down," said Lazuli, and moved towards one of the three blue chairs arranged in a triangle in the center of the room. Indigena lifted her eyebrows, but did as commanded. _We are to have one more visitor. Dare I think that Lazuli would have the courage to invite our third sister?_

But of course she could think that. Lazuli had had the courage to go alone into the paths between Dark and Light and do something utterly mad, sleep with something utterly nonhuman. Summoning Peridot to a meeting like this was something she could plan in her sleep, next to that.

Just after Indigena had taken her seat, Peridot entered the room. Indigena nodded, perforce, keeping her thorns from climbing from the sheaths on her back.

But it was a near thing. She did not like her sister for the way Peridot had raised her son, but the dislike could not rest in simple contempt. She was forced to be uneasily conscious of what her sister had achieved magically.

Peridot wore a simple gown, which seemed black at first but was revealed as dark red when the light of the fires fell on it. It barely concealed her breasts, and the sleeves twined up into her long dark hair in impossible ribbons. She took her seat in a way that made the gown flap and then freeze, plunging in long folds into the earth. Indigena smelled—not because she wanted to, but because she couldn't escape it—the deep, musky scent around Peridot, the scent of sex and lust and reproductive magic. Indigena knew a variation of that enchantment herself, the incredible power that sent green things striving back to the surface of the earth in spring after their long winter sleep, but it was never as demanding as the magic Peridot wielded, and never as heated.

_Low magic. Lust magic._

But most low magic and lust magic was a passing fancy for the witches or wizards who were interested in it, and they went on to more powerful spells later. Not so Peridot, who had made it her life's work, and who had used her network of former lovers in the Ministry to establish her political connections. What she did was worthy of scorn, but it _worked_, and Indigena was uneasily aware of her sister when they met, in every sense. That she had become pregnant only once in all her liaisons was astounding, but Indigena supposed Peridot must know the secrets of preventing life as well as engendering it, and of course she might have climbed mostly into the beds of women since Feldspar was born.

Indigena did not know. She did not wish to know anything about the activities of her pariah sister, whether they were held at night or during the day.

"Welcome, sister," said Lazuli, of course sounding no different than she had when she welcomed Indigena. She turned to face both of them and shook her left sleeve back. Indigena's eyes narrowed when she saw the snake on the chewed flesh, the serpent eating its tail, curling forward and back.

"What is that?" she asked quietly.

"My ouroboros," Lazuli said, voice as flat and emotionless as though she had always borne the tattoo. "Given to me by Harry at my request, that I might repair the wrong of my family."

Indigena stared. Not only had Peridot failed to persuade Lazuli to abandon Harry's side, she had failed so spectacularly that Lazuli had, in essence, sworn an oath of vengeance against Indigena. She would cut the diseased graft—in her eyes, in Harry's—from the Yaxley family tree. She would actually fight, not just protect her daughter or give Harry political advice.

"Why?" she asked quietly.

"The answer to that lies in Peridot." Lazuli turned her head to face the pariah, in such a smooth, snake-like movement that she didn't disturb her robe, and the circling serpent remained visible.

Reluctantly, Indigena looked at Peridot, whose eyes were currently closed. They opened, and they were green, flecked with gold, like the stone from which she took her name. And there was a beauty about her, lithe and fierce as a snake's, that made Indigena want to—

"Stop it!" she hissed, and heard the cloth on her seat tear as the thorns surged from her back.

Peridot laughed, and the sound was too deep, damn her, too husky. "Something wrong, sister?" she asked. "But of course it would be. That particular spell only works on people who haven't let someone crawl between their legs in far too long. You should watch that. I can only imagine how all that humid heat you carry will rot you if you don't use it."

"What did you want?" Indigena said, and made the tendrils in her hair lie flat.

"Why, sister," said Peridot, with a tilt of her head, "only to repay you for infecting me with a potion that can light me on fire with a thought, and for taking my son from me when you had no right to do so."

"You know why I did it," said Indigena, and forced herself to relax. Lazuli had made no move to attack her yet, and she was the one Indigena worried most about, despite Peridot's disgusting lack of inhibitions. "He was the one responsible for my enslavement. And he can still die, easily. Or he could survive this war. I meant every word of my bargain in that letter, sister. I will defend him like a nephew if you fulfill that part of your bargain. Or I would have," she added, with a glance at Lazuli, "since it seems you could not fulfill it."

Peridot snorted. "Of course I didn't. I went to Lazuli the moment I received the letter and told her about it."

Indigena stared at her. The sister who had raised her son to be a coward should not have done that. "You know the threat of the potion is real," she said. "You know that you could die at any moment my Lord wills."

"Yes, but its reality is not the important thing." Peridot shook her head, and the dark scent of sex filled the room. Indigena forced herself to keep her eyes on her sister's face, because looking anywhere else on her body was just too disgusting at this point. "I am tired of you threatening me, Indigena. You have never thought I had any courage, because I chose to spoil the one child I ever bore, and because I _did_ think there were more important things than your interpretation of Yaxley honor. My honor is different."

"Your honor is nonexistent," Indigena muttered.

"I did tell you that she had the most charmingly childlike beliefs," Peridot remarked to Lazuli, who was watching them both with calm, narrowed eyes. "She still mixes up chastity with honor." She turned back to Indigena. "All of my lovers have experienced pleasure, Indigena, and none of them ever regretted going to bed with me. And my son never regretted being born my son. He may have, now. That means that _of course_ I am going to act against you."

"Even though my Lord could destroy you?" Indigena asked.

Peridot rolled her eyes. "He can try," she said. "I have some magic that may yet teach him a thing or two. Even potions are not unbeatable, for someone who has spent as much time in the dark as I have. And if I die, then I die pursuing my vision of honor and courage." She locked gazes with Indigena. "Did you honestly not think that I was a Yaxley, too? That you could compel me?"

Indigena tightened the grip of her hands on her knees. She had suggested the Meleager's Fire potion for Peridot because it _should_ have compelled her to do what the Dark Lord wanted. She was a coward. She had to be. She worked in such a lowly branch of magic, and she had raised her son that way, and—and Indigena despised her, and who would want to die of flames from inside her own blood?

"You have underestimated us both, sister," Lazuli said in an empty voice. "And now you have paid the price. We asked you here to tell you this. You have two sisters working against you now." She turned her left arm over again to show off the ouroboros, not reacting when a chunk of flesh vanished from near her elbow. "If you have any questions to ask of us, you may ask them. Otherwise, you should leave now, because you are no longer welcome in Briar-Rise."

Indigena looked from sister to sister. She had lost, she would not keep them from participating in the war, and she still did not understand how she had lost. Lazuli's most important priority had always been the protection of her daughter. Participating in the war meant she might lose her life, and thus leave Jacinth undefended. How had Harry convinced her?

And Peridot! Lust magic was low magic, no matter what she thought. She should have given in the moment Indigena threatened her, more interested in surviving and fucking than joining one side of the war or another.

_I suppose I am not the only one who has honor, and a failure as a mother does not make her a failure as a Yaxley._

Indigena rose and left the room without a word. She had learned a bitter lesson, and learned it too late. There was nothing _to_ say.

SSSSSSSSSSS

"You are ready?" Peregrine asked, head tilted back to stare up at him as they walked towards the meadow where the contest would be held. She was tiny, a black woman hardly above five feet, but that didn't matter. She radiated more than the usual wild aura of a werewolf, but a sense of tightly controlled and restrained power. She was alpha, and no movement of hers let one forget it.

Remus nodded, and then looked ahead of them. They were descending a small slope, into the center of a boiling mass of werewolves. Not only Hawk's pack, but Peregrine's and Camellia's, as their nearest neighbors, had come to see who would win this fight for alpha. It was one of a very few times when the dead alpha had left no indication as to who he preferred to take over. Hawk had not expected to die, much less to end in the arms of a vampire.

Remus had been beta male for all intents and purposes—one of the werewolves in the pack who had lived with the curse longest, and specially invited into the pack by Hawk himself. But that made no difference when Hawk hadn't chosen him to follow him, and there was a challenger. Remus would have to fight her.

He thought he was ready. He had spent the last few days preparing himself for this challenge, and he had sought that preparation in the blending of his wizard and werewolf mindsets. As a beta, he hadn't had to lead. He could follow Hawk as he had followed Loki at one time, and Dumbledore before that, and James and Sirius at a time before that.

But now the pack needed a leader, and Remus knew he was the best candidate. Many other members of the pack were either content with their place in the hierarchy or, like Blackbird, his challenger, simply didn't understand what being an alpha now would mean. They were thinking of the power and the privileges first, and secondarily of the safety of the pack. Sometimes, as when the packs were simply surviving in London and had no larger part to play in the world, that worked.

It wouldn't work now. They had to consider what their actions would mean in the larger world of wizards and werewolves. Blackbird had been a Muggle until she was bitten six years ago, and then she had voyaged from pack to pack around Europe, only ending up in Hawk's a few months prior. She thought she understood challenges, and perhaps she did, but she had no idea of pack tradition or of how the magical world really saw them.

_We need someone who has experience of both worlds, and can subdue his own pride to follow another's orders, like Harry's, when necessary._

The very traits that would have made him unsuited to lead a pack in peacetime made him perfect now.

They reached the bottom of the meadow, and the others came forward to greet them, rubbing against Remus with carefully neutral gestures, but nipping gently at Peregrine's jaw and nose to show submission, or rolling on their backs and baring their bellies and throats. Peregrine responded calmly and confidently to such gestures, secure in her power. Remus watched her with a trace of envy.

_I am not there yet._

But the challenge would help. Already Remus could feel the currents of the packmind shifting and changing, as Hawk's pack prepared to accept the winner of this fight as their leader. It was _right_, and someone who rebelled and insisted on not following the leader because of personal dislike would cost the pack. What they were together was more important than any single individual, even as every single member made them what they were, like notes in a symphony.

The moon was rising. Remus could feel it coming, the slow tide of his blood as it surged towards the walls of his veins.

They had all taken Wolfsbane before the contest, of course, though it had never been traditional in such challenges. The participants had to be equal in as many ways as possible, though; a werewolf with a broken leg would insure that the other had his or her leg weighted down, either with physical obstacles or pain spells. So, since Remus insisted on taking Wolfsbane, Blackbird had also taken it, and so had the others so that they could retain their minds and better judge the contest.

Remus and Peregrine separated to take their places. She loped to the northern side of the circle, and sat down facing Camellia, who sat on the south. Remus himself was in the west, with the other members of the pack carefully falling away and letting him have all the room he needed. Blackbird had won the privilege of being on the east, nearest the rising full moon.

Remus locked his eyes with hers, and felt the growl rising in his throat as something almost foreign to himself. The important thing was making Blackbird back down. Of course, she didn't, a thin, wiry young woman with long dark hair, already naked as the contest demanded, skin bared to the first touch of moonlight. She was strong, and had a naturally dominant personality. That second thing was what really made her believe she would win, Remus knew. She _liked_ to command people, and she believed that was all a pack leader needed.

He would have smiled if he could have worked his face into some expression other than a snarl. She had been a werewolf for six years, and Remus for more than thirty. Yes, personality mattered, but so did perception. And if she had seen nothing more than desire to command in the alphas she studied, something was wrong with her perceptions.

And then the moon was there.

Remus tossed back his head, and felt the bone-deep shudder begin as his skeleton rearranged itself. The most exquisitely painful part of this was the elongation of his face, the muzzle thrusting itself forward at the same moment his spine bowed. Remus sometimes thought he could have borne the change even before the invention of Wolfsbane as long as he could have remained a human-headed wolf.

Not to say that the forcing out of the tail didn't hurt, or the flattening and opening of his hands into paws, or the sudden crook of his legs. But they didn't hurt in the same way, and once the alteration of his face passed, Remus knew the worst was done.

Besides, the moments when he opened his eyes as Moony under the full moon were the only ones when the wolf in his head fell silent, as long as he was dosed with Wolfsbane. The transformation contented it as it was never contented while he was human, whispering endless tales of blood and obsession. But the potion insured that it could not fulfill its desire for blood now.

Remus studied Blackbird, who had become a bitch so large and black, with such a thin gray stripe on her muzzle, that he was momentarily reminded of Fenrir. But she was not Fenrir. Remus knew _he_ was dead. He parted his jaws and panted, eyes locking with Blackbird's and never moving, his own growl and her answering sound becoming the whole world.

The whole world until Peregrine howled to begin the challenge, at least.

Blackbird sprang forward first, but Remus was only a moment behind. They swung past each other, and Remus felt the dash of fangs at his shoulder, followed by her weight, trying to bowl him over and end the contest quickly.

_So crude. _Not even six years in a werewolf's body could teach what had become instinct for Remus, though Blackbird was of course incredibly graceful compared to the young pups turned a month or so ago. She was still trying to use her strength the way a human wrestler would have used it.

But the world that ran on four legs was different. Remus was not as quick or strong as Blackbird, but he was clever, and he knew the wolf's body. He braced his feet and met her jaws with jaws of his own, grabbing onto her face, clamping onto the sensitive nose.

Blackbird yelped, and thus wasted her breath. _Idiot, _Remus thought, still closing his jaws. _She is not what the pack needs, not if she cannot anticipate something this simple._

She did drag herself free after a moment, using main force, but bearing long, ragged runnels of wounds all down her face. A howl rang from Camellia's side of the circle this time, marking first blood, and Remus felt the pack tremble with excitement. Wolfsbane held them where they were, though.

He didn't give Blackbird time to recover, but drove straight ahead, hitting her legs and tripping her into a tumble. Blackbird barked and tried to take him along, the front half of her body jerking like a fish or a rope. Remus kicked off the ground with his hind legs and leaped up and out, avoiding the trap. When he landed, it was with a skid, but he had humiliated Blackbird successfully and avoided taking any bruises of his own.

She flipped over and came up into a leap. Remus reared to meet her.

For a moment, they stood on their hind legs, locked jaw to jaw and snarl to snarl, shoving and pushing. Blackbird's greater strength was always going to tell, and Remus could feel himself slowly going over backwards.

He waited until the moment when Blackbird's confidence would be greatest, the moment before he would have fallen and been irretrievably caught under her in a losing position, with her jaws on his throat. Then he yanked himself away and _ducked_, practically swimming under her belly, lifting his head now and then to snap at all that vulnerable soft fur.

Blackbird half-limped and half-stamped, trying to get him out from under her groin, her yelps high and shrill. Remus added indignity to insult by snatching her tail in his jaws as he came out, bracing his feet again, and shaking so hard that she went sprawling face-first on the earth.

Blackbird tried to roll over and stand, but Remus raked his teeth through the fur on her tail, ripping off chunks and shredding it to little more than a fluffy strip of flesh. Then he jumped away, scraping one paw through the grass to celebrate his triumph. He couldn't have played that trick on an ordinary wolf. Occasionally a werewolf's longer legs, which gave them more speed, were not an advantage.

But she recovered fast, and was up, and springing at him. And that might even have made a difference if Remus was stupid enough to allow himself to be cornered, which he wasn't.

He leaped and turned and spun, making Blackbird fall more than once, and angering her immensely. He could practically feel her thoughts, because she wasn't a subtle or a deep thinker, and they all shone in her amber eyes anyway. She thought that, since she was faster, she ought to have been able to catch up with him.

But just because she had more speed in a run on open ground didn't mean she could anticipate all his moves. And as Remus humiliated her more and more thoroughly, including one point at which she crossed her paws in front of herself and tripped, he knew she grew more and more frustrated.

Finally she uttered an ear-splitting roar and hit him, trying to knock him over.

Remus had been waiting for that. He molded himself to her chest, locked his jaws on her left shoulder, and held on. When they fell, she on top of him, she snapped frantically, trying to find a place to bite, but Remus was in an excellent position to both worry at her shoulder and kick with his hind paws, coming nearer and nearer to ripping open her gut.

Instinct made Blackbird try to let go of him. Remus wouldn't allow that. He didn't want to kill her—they could use a wolf of her strength and speed in the war—but he also couldn't take the chance that she would consider herself less than thoroughly beaten and renew the challenge at a later date. So he gave her a taste of what death by his teeth and his nails was like, and clung even when she tried to back off.

Finally, her yelps had a sound of distinct terror, and her stumbling had taken her into a little hollow. It was easy for Remus to lower his paws—he'd been letting her carry most of his weight, which only exhausted her further—and lock them on the higher ground. Meanwhile, his jaws surged from her shoulder to her face, never letting go of at least one hold in her fur on the way. A moment later, he was squeezing the breath from her nostrils again, his fangs falling easily into the grooves he'd carved earlier.

Blackbird whimpered, and Remus saw desperation in her eyes. She whined into his mouth then, and Remus, knowing he would pay for this if he'd misjudged her, let her go.

He hadn't misjudged her. Even Blackbird could admit defeat when it actually happened to her, it seemed. She whined some more, sucked in air, and then crouched in front of him, lipping at his chin like a puppy seeking to make a parent regurgitate meat. When Remus flipped his ears forward and snarled, she rolled eagerly on her back, and Remus lowered his head and clamped his jaws into place on her throat, holding her in signal of submission given and accepted, and a challenge won.

Howls rang from Camellia's and Peregrine's throats, to be joined a moment later by the cries of all the pack, and then they were leaping around Remus, nudging him, slamming him with their shoulders, wagging their tails furiously, meeting his eyes for only a moment before averting their heads.

Remus accepted it all, and felt the packmind reorient around him, a blaze of redrawn ley lines that accepted him as their keystone. He could do this, he reminded himself, because he had to, and because he was not alone. He had other pack leaders around him, and Harry to follow if times became too hard.

He tore free of the press at last, and lifted his head to call. Their voices blended with his, an endless eerie chorus to announce the latest addition to the long lineage of pack leaders.

SSSSSSSSSSS

Erasmus shivered as he appeared from Apparition. He could hear werewolves howling somewhere near, and it was not a comfortable sound. _That is Dark magic that should never have been cast. Why did whoever invented the curse spread it? Some things, wizards were not meant to learn._

He turned, and found Aurora already beside him, with Cupressus Apollonis at the other shoulder. More and more Light wizards and witches appeared as he watched, or undeclared ones, like Aurora, who had decided to stand with them tonight. He lifted his wand and cast the Dawn's Light Charm. Warmer and richer radiance than was possible with _Lumos_ slid over them, echoing the very last gleams of sunset in the sky, on this evening of longest light and shortest night.

He felt the magic taking hold around him, a breath of sky and sun, and turned to see the stones appearing. They were near the monument that Muggles called Stonehenge, and Erasmus could feel the place magic if he concentrated, a blend of wizardly and druidic power endlessly renewed and sent back into the soil and the stones each year.

But these were the other stones, the ones that Muggles could not see, and which never appeared any more except at Midsummer, and except in answer to the needs of Light wizards. It was appropriate that they would come now, Erasmus thought, when he intended to found a new Order in the ancient tradition.

Diamond lines of light were rising from the grass, rippling like reflections on water. They snapped firm in moments, and filled with gold, as if someone had slipped phoenix feathers into them. And now they were visible: four circles consisting of pairs of upright stones with lintels laid across them, and from each hung a lazily swaying pendulum of light. A flickering, dancing glow like a will-o'-the-wisp called them from the center.

Erasmus glanced once around his companions, forty-four of them in all. The number would do. They had agreed to come here and begin the Order, and that meant more to him than a greater number of unwilling volunteers would have.

"We have forty-five," he said, and lifted his wand, so that the Dawn's Light Charm could more fully reveal the shining bulk of the stones. "We are here, in the Shining Place, where once Christopher the White asked for help to combat the Dark Lady Genevieve, who brought the Dementors into the world. We are here, in the Circles of Light, where once British wizards made their stand against the Midwinter Warlocks. We are here, in the Changing Ring, where the Firestar Lord who immorally blended Dark and Light magic met his end at the hands of Helen Potter. We are here, and _we serve the Light._"

The chorus came back to him, a ragged flutter of voices from forty-four throats. Erasmus smiled slightly. The one who had spoken most strongly and confidently was Cupressus Apollonis. That was not a surprise, since he was the one of all his allies most committed to Light. The only disagreement he and Erasmus had had since Apollonis threw his weight behind their alliance was in whether they should leave Harry alone. Erasmus had at last made the point that they should ignore his defiance for now, that fighting Voldemort was more important. Apollonis had looked at him for a long time with wild eyes before inclining his head in agreement.

Erasmus walked inward now, passing the first ring of stones. The glow in the center became clearer and clearer, and he saw Aurora shiver. She was undeclared, so the place affected her more. Erasmus mostly felt contented, embraced, loved. The Light was here, singing in every breeze, the wings of its great gryphon rising and falling in the corner of every eye. And now the pendulums in the second ring of stones were swaying faster and faster, grasping Erasmus's words and drawing them forth from his throat. Everything was as it should be, he thought, or would be, once their new Order was established.

"We have forty-five. We are as the old ones were, the bright ones, the wizards who risked everything to bring back the Light when it was banished from Britain for fifty years. We are as the old ones were, the wise ones, who saved so many treasures from the sack of Rome. We are as the old ones were, the powerful ones, who made sure that Muggles and wizards separated so that both our worlds could survive. We are here, and _we serve the Light._"

The response was stronger this time, and Erasmus felt a growing heat on his face and neck, softer than any fire. He lifted his wand. It drew a triangle of light in the air on its own, pointing to his heart, and to Aurora's, and to Cupressus Apollonis's. Since they were the most powerful wizards there, the Light would draw on their strength for the coming ritual.

Summer had been invited into the circles with them, and paced beside them like a great cat as they crossed to the third ring of stones. Here, Erasmus could hear the clash of bells as the pendulums swung against each other, and together they made a wall of bladed light among the stones the moment the last of their forty-five were through. Again, he paused to study them, and was gratified to see hope and belief beginning to creep into many faces. Even Elizabeth Dawnborn, who had agreed to participate in this ritual because of the Light and not because of him, was clasping her hands now, her eyes shining with faith and love.

"We are forty-five," Erasmus whispered this time, letting his voice build. "We are the ones who value righteousness above our own lives. We are the ones who would voluntarily limit ourselves that others might live and do as they would, respecting free will. We are the ones who would bow our heads to the will of order, of patterns, knowing that human life needs patterns in order to exist. We are here, and _we serve the Light._"

All the pendulums chimed at once when the response came back from his people, and Erasmus shivered as the music ran up and down his spine. For a moment, he thought he saw a curled wing, a curved neck, in the edge of the gold that shone around him, that spilled into and split the night, and he shivered again.

They walked inward to the fourth ring. Now only a few trunks of stone hid the darting golden treasure in the center of the circle.

"We are forty-five!" Erasmus found himself bellowing, his voice ringing out like a trumpet cry, though he hadn't meant it to. The power of the ritual was building itself up, wringing out its human vessels. "We are the ones who work together, disdaining the solitude of the Dark. We are the ones who love truth, who value honesty, who disdain subterfuge. We are the ones who live more for peace than war, and do not think war glorious. We are here, and _we serve the Light!_"

He could not have asked for a more intimidating clangor than the voices of those around him raised this time. It might have made even Voldemort back away in fear, at least if he knew what was good for him. The stones hummed as if they were wineglasses tapped with a finger, and Erasmus caught his breath as the golden glow in the center of the circle at last turned and swept towards them.

As he had hoped, it had taken the form of a firebird, longer-legged than the phoenix, brighter, with eyes like hope. The firebird hovered in front of them for a moment, and then began to dance.

Its dance was the beginning of spring, the laughter of children, the tiny emotions of the human psyche that had room to flourish when not crushed by the overwhelming Dark. Erasmus bowed his head, and felt his heart thrumming in his ears, and tears on his cheeks like the touch of butterfly wings.

He knelt, pressed down by a great warm hand. The others followed, and all of them held their wands out in front of them, because this was what was supposed to happen.

The firebird danced past them, the touch of its long, graceful legs setting a tiny, smoldering, brilliant light on the end of every wand. And Erasmus felt its blessing breathed into his ears and his eyes, as the Light accepted and approved what they were to do.

_We are the Order of the Firebird. We are the pure ones, the fighters who cling to the ancient traditions. We shall not do what is expedient, but what is right, and purge ourselves of tainted beliefs and believers. Not for us the close company of Dark wizards that Harry favors, or the dangerous connection to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. This is the path that runs up into the Light._

_We are the Order of the Firebird, and we shall fight._

And all the world was light.


	11. Intermission: Testing

The lines quoted here are from Swinburne's "The Garden of Proserpine."

**Intermission: Testing**

It felt rather like hurling himself against the equivalent of steel coils armed with blades, but why shouldn't he do it? It wasn't as though he had anything else to do. Waking or sleeping, eating or standing motionless, carrying out some order of the Dark Lord or looking blankly at the wall of the earth burrow, his body moved and existed without him. The corner of his mind that still belonged to him, though, was aware and _bored_. He might as well test the boundaries of the Dark Lord's control and see what happened.

Lucius had never been aware of how much he detested slavery before this. He tried spells on the wall in front of him, because in this small, blank corner of his mind he did clutch an imagining of his wand. He tried to summon love for Narcissa and Draco, because that seemed to be the key to evading the hatred. He tried to imagine the walls parting in front of him and spilling him back into his body, which he felt the sensations from as distant tingles. He highly suspected he was doomed to lose this contest if he forgot what his body felt like.

He realized somewhere in the second week that he could not imagine bowing to the Dark Lord now, could barely conceptualize his younger self's decision to take the Mark and bow down to a powerful wizard. What _had_ he been thinking? Was the promise of distant power and riches, the rewards of ambition, really enough to make up for torture and the humbling of his pride? Had he really needed the Dark Lord to prop him up in the Ministry and in life because he hadn't trusted his own capacities?

When he fully understood the current of his thoughts, he swore, profusely.

Harry had finally converted him.

His body was currently listening to his Lord's estimation of Harry's allies, based on what he'd glimpsed through Harry's mind during the latest hive vampire attack. His true self coiled along the boundaries of the walls, looking carefully at the blades that guarded them. One was rusted, he found—a representation of the Dark Lord's overconfidence or inattention, perhaps.

He tugged at it, and no one was more surprised than Lucius when it came away, crumbling, in his hand.

That left a breach in the walls. Lucius strode forward, determined to get through it. He knew he would face a terrible struggle when once he was back in control of his body, but it _had_ to happen. He could not stay here. This was no life, shut behind walls and having this horrible empathy for house elves that would destroy his resolve and change him into a weak Light wizard if he could not escape.

The Dark Lord scooped him up as he stepped into the breach.

Lucius couldn't breathe. The pain that flooded his body and his mind now was like what he imagined a stroke to be. Agony danced in his blood and crowned his head. His body made a rasping noise and subsided to its knees. No one made a noise or blink of surprise except Indigena Yaxley. The rest of them were not independent actors, and could do nothing but what the Dark Lord commanded.

Moments later, he was back behind the dark walls, the breach repaired and the sword restored to shining sharpness. Lucius snarled and began to prowl again, determined to find a way through.

"Ah, Lucius," murmured the Dark Lord, and the eyes of his snake shone brilliant red as his own blinded ones now no longer could. "I have the _perfect_ task for you, my silver serpent."

And his damnable, traitorous body that made him sympathize with house elves bowed its head and crawled a little further to lick the Dark Lord's boots, murmuring, "I live to serve, my Lord."

_Such humility is unbecoming of a Malfoy, _Lucius thought furiously, and moved to another place in the barriers to begin his search again.

SSSSSSSSSSS

Hawthorn knew she could wake.

She had to wake. She had asserted command of herself when she was turned into a werewolf. She had not let Fenrir Greyback's bite corrupt and destroy her life, even though it had been intended to do so.

_But you could only do that with the help of Wolfsbane._

Likewise, she would not let her hatred for Lucius and Indigena and the Aurors who had beaten her and mistreated her in the cell in Tullianum cripple her forever. She would fight her way free and flee back to Harry's side.

_If you can do that without outside help. Do you really think you can?_

Her mouth was wide in a helpless, gasping breath—or at least it felt that way. She swam in a sea of hatred, black crushing loathing that pressed her towards the bottom of her mind. She had to make it to the surface, but she could not stop looking at Indigena and seeing Pansy dying in a frenzy of vines, or glancing towards Lucius and seeing the man who had coolly penned a letter condemning her to worse than death. She had tried to see them otherwise, to see Yaxley as an enemy who should be quickly killed and Lucius as a fellow prisoner, but she could not.

_You cannot do this._

Her Lord had rather quickly realized, from the oath scar on her left arm cutting the Dark Mark, that he could not use her directly against Harry or his brother, but that did not matter. The oath of loyalty Hawthorn had sworn, and which would bleed her dry if she violated it, only protected Harry's _blood_ family. She could still go after and bite Professor Snape, or Draco Malfoy, or anyone else among Harry's friends and allies and loved ones who did not have that connection of direct relation to him.

_You cannot win free._

She tried and tried to surface, and every time, another dark breaker knocked her back to the bottom of the ocean.

_Why should you strive, when you lose all the time?_

Hawthorn tried to remember what Harry had taught her about the storm-colored nature of the world, that every storm passed, that the future might be greener than the past and might be grayer, but must be borne. It was hard, though. Every path she could see from here only looked black, and led her deeper into the darkness. Should control of her body ever return to her, would she ever be able to do anything but kill herself for the shame of what she had done while enslaved?

"Hawthorn."

Her head snapped up, and her wolf snarled in eagerness. One presence in her head approved fully of what the Dark Lord commanded her to do, and that made her struggle ever so much harder.

"I have a task for you as well," her Lord said softly, and the snake around his waist danced and danced and danced.

SSSSSSSSSSS

His days were an endless round. Sometimes he brewed potions that his Lord told him to make, and sometimes he worked on inventing an improvement to the Black Plague spores, and sometimes he went in the dead of night and fetched those who were least likely to be missed, the children of Mudblood families who did not even know they were magical yet. His Lord was gathering them against the day when he had repaired the hole in his magical core and could feed on them for their magic.

Adalrico's life, then, was not so different from the life he had led years ago, except that he had not often fetched victims then. Each use of the _absorbere_ gift had weakened his Lord, and left him prostrate for days. Since his resurrection with Harry's blood and flesh, though, the ability had changed and strengthened.

He looked down at his hands, stirring the black liquid that would become the silver Imperius potion in a cauldron, and wondered.

He had told Harry that he had once lived life as in a poisoned garden. He had felt like that when he tortured Alba Starrise, and suggested having the man who raped her take the form of her own son. He had felt like that when he descended on a Muggle village and himself raped one of the women who fought to defend a Mudblood child, giving her tainted womb a gift of pureblood seed it did not deserve. He felt like that now.

He was bent, flawed. There was a wound within his soul that made him vulnerable to such persuasion, that made him less than human when he contemplated what harm he could do to his fellow humans.

It made it very hard to fight the hold of the Dark Lord's hatred on him. Adalrico was quietly, frighteningly, deadly certain, in one part of himself, that this was all he deserved. He belonged in the poisoned garden, as a dangerous beast did in chains, and now that it had embraced him again, he did not think he could find the strength to fight it.

"Adalrico."

He looked up, and then was not sure whether that was his choice or Voldemort's. The Dark Lord hovered in the doorway, borne up by the current of magic running through Indigena Yaxley's Dark Mark.

"You will bring the potion to a safe stopping place and then come to me," his Lord's voice instructed. "I have a task for you."

And his head bowed, because what was he but a killer, a tool of his hatred, a puppet pulled here because of the darkness inside himself? He committed such evil, and that only proved that he was worthy but to commit such evil.

He turned back to his brewing as the Dark Lord moved away. It was perhaps five minutes later when he became aware of someone else watching him. He looked up.

Evan Rosier leaned against the doorway of the potions lab, the packed earth of the burrow, and stared at him. It took Adalrico a moment to make out the words he was whispering.

_"Then star nor sun shall waken,_

_Nor any change of light:_

_Nor sound of waters shaken,_

_Nor any sound or sight:_

_Nor wintry leaves nor vernal,_

_Nor days nor things diurnal;_

_Only the sleep eternal_

_In an eternal night."_

"Go away, Evan," Adalrico said indifferently, because his Lord would grant him permission for that much. "I have things to do."

"All of us do," Rosier said softly. "All of us are playing the great game, and it does not end until we are dead. But some of us find the eternal night sooner than others." He gave Adalrico half a bow, and went on his way.

Adalrico turned back to the potion.

_Only the sleep eternal, in an eternal night._


	12. A Blizzard of Bad News

Man, this is an ugly chapter. **Warning for gore.**

**Chapter Eight: A Blizzard of Bad News**

Harry paced in a circle, studying the way that Ginny was aiming her wand at the far wall of the dueling room. So far, he hadn't seen anything to criticize from her. As she'd said, she didn't have the raw power to perform every spell, but she'd studied the wand movements and incantations until she had them down pat. The wizards and witches in the room, many of them from villages far away from Hogwarts and older than she was, should have nothing to complain about.

"This is the way that you perform _Ardesco_," said Ginny, and started to turn to the wizard-shaped figure propped against the wall.

"That's a Dark Arts spell," said an older witch suddenly. She'd worn makeup for the first session of the dueling practice, but sweat had caked it and sent it dripping in unfortunate globs down her cheeks. At least she'd had the sense to remove it, Harry thought. Other people had to be scolded into realizing that flowing robes or long hair or other ornaments were obvious targets in battle. "How do you know it?"

"Because I taught it to her," said Harry. "And any Dark Arts spell that can be used in defense is fair game in these sessions."

The witch hushed, cowed, but Ginny shot him an annoyed look. Harry hid a smile, seeing it. She couldn't really teach and make them trust her if he was there and undermining her authority, or making her seem like nothing more than a prop for him, her knowledge relying on his own.

"And I trust her to teach it to you," said Harry, walking to the door of the classroom. "Please tell me when you're finished here, Ginny. Bill and Charlie suggested that you had even more knowledge of hiding places around Ottery St. Catchpole than they did."

Ginny nodded, her back gone stiff with pride again, and Harry heard her clearly intone, "_Ardesco!_" just before he pulled the door shut behind him.

Charlie and Syrinx were waiting in the hallway. They'd been trading shifts guarding him with Bill and Owen, so that all four of them could get used to working together in different combinations. Harry nodded to them and started towards the next room, mind already running over the plans for establishing the network of safehouses that he'd started setting up.

Charlie saved his life. He was on the last stair when Voldemort hit him. If he'd been alone, he would have fallen from the angle he was perched at and cracked his head open. As it was, Harry felt himself black out for a moment, and when he came to, around the excruciating, splitting pain in his brow, he was aware that Charlie was the one who held him and whispered, "Harry?"

"Attack," Harry tried to say, but his jaw clenched shut and he almost bit his tongue off. This wasn't a strike at him through his hatred. This was Voldemort purely and simply exploiting the scar connection to cause him pain. He felt his body begin to jerk, and then the visions swept in, one after the other, a blizzard of bad news seeming to travel down the red hot wires Voldemort had clamped to his brain.

SSSSSSSSSSS

Honoria stretched her arms to the sky. She enjoyed being the liaison with the Maenad Press and Dionysus Hornblower, but she still loved the open sky, too, and in the hot rooms where the _Vox Populi_ was produced, she had precious little chance to feel it.

She wandered down the small alley behind the press, keeping her senses alert, but not overly worried about an attack. Wards sparked and danced around her, and it was almost time for her to Apparate home, anyway. Honoria had agreed that she shouldn't use her gull Animagus form to fly anymore, since almost everyone among Harry's allies—and former allies—knew about it thanks to several spectacular stunts last year.

Distant children's shouts came to her; they might have been wizard or Muggle. Honoria paused, wondering if she should go and see what they were shouting about. Then she could clearly make out the sound of Exploding Snap cards, and relaxed. _One couldn't be paranoid all the time, _she reminded herself. _That was more Ignifer's province. And I won't let this damn war change me that much._

She did want to make a stop before she went home, after all. She'd visit the Weasley brothers' joke shop, and choose a prank to pull on Ignifer. Her beloved had been far too serious lately, acting as if crumbs in the bed would mean that the Death Eaters had won. She needed something to cheer her up.

_And then, _Honoria thought, as she turned in the direction of Diagon Alley, _a round of good, athletic sex._

A footstep fell softly behind her, too softly for anyone with legitimate business. Honoria lifted her head, feeling the cords in her neck stretch, and listened. She was still within the Press's wards. Once outside them, she'd Apparate.

And then she felt the sheer power exerted, cutting through the press's wards as if they were nothing. She turned, her own wand already whipping up and out, the words of a cutting hex poised on her lips.

Lucius Malfoy got there first. "_Abrumpo mebratim!_"

The spell that came at Honoria was one she hadn't seen before, a gout of yellow light as sharp as an arrow. She leaped back, still trying to get out through the edge of the wards, to Apparate, and dodged the curse. But it bounced off the side of the alley and came back at her, too sudden to run from, too quick to avoid, leaving her nowhere to run—

And then she _couldn't_ run.

The spell took her left leg, severing it cleanly from her body, and cauterizing the wound as it went. _Nice of the spell's creator, _Honoria thought dazedly, catching herself against the wall. _Now I won't bleed to death. I must remember to learn who invented this and thank him._

The curse wasn't done, either. It had cornered off another wall and was coming back at her. Honoria's mind, meanwhile, had finally picked up the meaning of the Latin incantation used for the curse. _I sever limb by limb._

It wouldn't stop until it had cut off all her arms and legs.

She forced her will down and above the intense, immense pain, into the small form of the gull. Then she was hovering, her body's weight shifted to her wings, and she darted away from the curse far faster than a clumsy human could have managed it. She strove upward, out of the narrow confines of the alley, trying to ignore the fact that her unchanged human leg was lying below.

The yellow light of the curse turned and flew into the open sky after her. Now, without stones to bounce off, it simply pursued a straight-line course. Honoria sucked in a breath of deep pain, and knew that she would have to try something she'd never tried before as a gull: Apparition.

The pain gave her a goad, or she might not have done it even then. She pictured the bedroom that she shared with Ignifer, the gleaming white wood headboard, the brilliant sheets on the bed—red and gold, and that was her idea, to use Gryffindor colors that were also the colors of flame—and then threw herself forward. Perhaps she changed back to human as she began the spell. She didn't know. She only knew that she wanted to be home more than she wanted anything else in the world.

And then she bounced on the sheets, gasping, exquisitely aware of the fact that she had only one leg and was human again, but aware, also, that the curse had not followed her across the distance. She rolled over and sat up.

Ignifer came through the door at a dead run. She stopped when she saw Honoria, for just a moment, and then came forward and wrapped her in an embrace that left Honoria hardly able to breathe, murmuring over and over again that they'd get help, that this wasn't the end of everything, that she'd take her to St. Mungo's—

Honoria blinked, and blinked, and it was only then, with the guarantee of not losing her life in the next ten seconds, that she was able to cry.

SSSSSSSSSS

"_Thomas!_"

Priscilla rolled her eyes. She'd been knocking on the door of his library for the last ten minutes, and sometimes calling his name, and still she hadn't managed to stir his attention from whatever scroll had it this time. Now, she used an unlocking spell to force the door.

Thomas looked up and grinned at her from the middle of a table strewn with parchment. At once, he pushed one of them towards her. Priscilla gave it a patient glance. It looked like a map.

"I think this is a way to find repositories of Voldemort's soul," he told her. "The Horcruxes are immortal in and of themselves, unable to be destroyed as long as the spells surrounding them aren't broken. And this map can locate immortal objects in Britain." He ran one finger reverently over the corner of it. "Granted, it's several decades old, but some of the Horcruxes are several decades old."

"Wouldn't someone have found them already, if it was that simple?" Priscilla could see a great many red circles on the map, ones that made her skeptical. There were research wizards like Thomas who would have given everything to find the objects simply so they could study them, and others who would seek them out and sell them to collectors. Even if the Horcruxes had been shown on the map, Priscilla was of the opinion that they were long gone already.

"Oh." Thomas frowned, the endearing expression that had made Priscilla fall in love with him. "I suppose so. Yes." He looked at the map mournfully. "Why do people have to render such treasures useless? I would study them and put them back again, so that future generations could come and see them."

Priscilla kissed him on the cheek. "I know you would, dear. Now, come to dinner." It was good that she'd developed the automatic habit of casting warming charms on the food, she thought. Sometimes, it took far more than ten minutes to gain Thomas's attention, even if she opened the door.

"All right," he said agreeably now, and started folding the map up.

Priscilla felt the quiver in the wards at the same time he did. Someone was testing them. Priscilla frowned and drew her wand, her heartbeat quickening. She had known this day might come from the time that Thomas allied with Harry. At least their wards were among the best that Thomas could design, and she had a spell that would let her know in an instant where every single one of their children was. She cast it now, and sighed in relief. All gathered in the kitchen, trying not to pick bits of warm food off the plates, and none near the front garden, where the intruder was.

"What should we do?" Thomas had risen to his feet, but looked to her for instructions. That was as it should be, Priscilla thought. She had been the Auror. She was more skilled at defense than he was, and more present in the world, though right now his eyes were as sharp and clear as even she could wish.

"The wards aren't breached yet," she said calmly. "Go to the kitchen and take the children through the Portkeys we've prepared to—"

And then something sucked hard, unnaturally, on the wards, and they were simply _gone_. At the same moment, Priscilla heard the sharp _crack_ of Apparition, and knew that someone was inside the house.

In the kitchen, where her children were.

Priscilla did not think; she acted. She seized Thomas's arm and Apparated down to the kitchen, her body shaking with cold sweat as she landed, her mind seeking out obstacles—table, chairs, cupboards—she could put between her children and the intruder.

Hawthorn Parkinson was just lifting her wand to cast a curse of some kind at Charis, their youngest daughter. Priscilla yelled, "_Expelliarmus!_"

Hawthorn's wand very nearly tugged free, but the other witch spun and kept a grip on it, shielding it with her body so it couldn't go flying away. Priscilla swallowed at the sight of her eyes. They wavered back and forth between cold and determined, and hot and tormented. This was a torture for her as much as it was for them, sending her after their family.

But Priscilla, much as she knew what it would cost Harry, was determined to kill the woman if she had to. "Thomas, the stones!" she shouted, knowing he would understand by that that she meant the pebbles they'd made into emergency Portkeys to Hogwarts, and then moved forward, wand lifted.

Hawthorn tried a Cutting Curse. Priscilla countered with the Shield Charm. She heard soft pops behind her, the sound of Portkeys activating, at least two, and knew it meant two of her children were gone to safety.

"_Caedes maxima!_" Hawthorn cried. The Slaughter Curse was aimed to go past Priscilla, to hit Rose or perhaps Melissa. She knew they would still be there. The children had been drilled to let the youngest go first with the Portkeys, so Charis and Albert would already have fled.

Priscilla flung herself in the way.

The Slaughter Curse made all the blood in one's body try to explode out through the veins. Priscilla rode the rushing tide of red, hearing pops behind her, one and then two. She heard Thomas, too, screaming her name, his voice high and furious, and saw the curtain of red-purple that dashed past her, soaking the wall.

She managed to whisper the Killing Curse, and though it cast only a faint green light, Hawthorn still had to move out of the way, because there was no block for the Killing Curse. That won Priscilla's family a moment, and it was an important one. She heard the pop of the final Portkey, and then Thomas's voice cut off. He'd gone with Robert, then.

She smiled, and closed her eyes, so that her last sight was not Hawthorn's desolate face, or the wall covered in her own life's blood.

SSSSSSSS

He did not want to do this. He could at least hold that thought in the dead of night to comfort himself, when no one else would come to do it, and the thoughts of what his family had been was haunting to him, because he knew they would turn away from him.

He strode towards the house in front of him, which was asleep and drowsing in the shadows of early morning. A path stretched out from it, white and sculptured in the form of scales. The wards shimmered above it, glittering curtains of light that would expand into full-fledged walls if someone threatened them. Already, Adalrico could feel them stirring and opening one eye, trying to judge how much this one, walking wizard who had Apparated in a mile away was a threat.

Adalrico knelt and placed a chunk of gray stone on the path. The wards began to flow outward to investigate it, wrapping around the stone like a gauzy butterfly's wing.

The moment they touched it, they were gone, sucked into the stone and torn apart.

Adalrico shivered a bit. His Lord had seen the memory of the gray stone that did the same to wards in his mind, from when the Unspeakables had brought a chunk of their Stone to Woodhouse during Harry's rebellion. He had ordered Adalrico to invent a magical object that would do the same thing. Adalrico had been able to do it in theory, but the larger spells that would secure that capacity in stone were beyond him, and would have made it only a pretty idea.

With several Death Eaters and the Dark Lord drawing on their magic through their Marks, however, very few powerful spells were impossible. Hawthorn and Lucius had gone armed with the stones to their targets. The final strike that his Lord had planned for today would also use it, but it would not be the main weapon in that killer's arsenal.

Adalrico picked up the stone, fixed his gaze forward, and strode on. With every step, he reminded himself he did not want to be here, doing this. But since this body continued striding forward anyway, oblivious to what his mind wanted, the mantra did no good. And, in a way, the fact that he was here gave him a black satisfaction. It answered the question he had always been unsure of: Had he really changed? Had he really escaped his Lord's fold? And now he could say conclusively that he had not.

He opened the door.

The house was still and silent. The wards might have cast alarms as they'd gone off, Adalrico thought, but it was unlikely they'd alerted anyone. For one thing, the inhabitants of this house were probably still asleep, and only one of them was in any condition to do anything about the sudden end of the wards. For another, he'd brought the most powerful stone with him. Those hidden behind the wards in other targets could feel the breach before it happened, if they were sensitive. This one had simply and suddenly destroyed them, and it could take some time to notice the absence of what had always been there.

He moved forward quietly, shutting the door behind him. The house had many windows, Light rained in every corner that Adalrico looked, contrasting with the family's Dark reputation. Of course, given recent events, perhaps the grieving widow had wanted light.

He moved through the kitchen, a drawing room with Floo connection, and then hovered in front of the bedroom, the door of which was ajar. Carefully, he pushed it back, and nodded when he saw his targets lying motionless on the bed. Medusa Rosier-Henlin slept the sleep of an exhausted new mother, with her hair spread all around her and her babe curled on her breast. Adalrico could destroy them both. He lifted his wand, raging in one part of his mind, but utterly unable to stop it.

"_Diffindo!_"

He staggered, nearly going to one knee, as the curse cut him all down his side, rendering the skin over his ribs ragged. He turned to see one of the Rosier-Henlin twins casting another curse at him. This one, at least, he could dodge, all the while scolding himself for his stupidity in simply _assuming_ the house was empty. His Lord knew that one twin was sworn to Harry as a protector and never left his side, but that didn't mean the other one couldn't leave.

"_Expelliarmus! Accio_ stone!"

Adalrico's wand soared out of his hand, and so did the gray stone that had sucked up the wards. He howled and grabbed more for the latter than his wand. If it went into his enemies' possession, then they could learn something of what his Lord had intended to remain a mighty secret and weapon.

The boy darted past him, though, moving lithely, and grabbed his mother around the waist, holding her close. The baby awakened, beginning to cry. Medusa Rosier-Henlin snatched her wand from the bedside table and aimed it at Adalrico.

He could not have moved if he tried. The cry of the child was summoning memories back to him, so strongly that they assaulted the walls of hatred that his Lord had woven to keep his conscience at bay. He was remembering his own daughter, born just two years ago, and the way she had cried when _she_ was born, and the reason that his wife and daughter had both survived that day with magic intact. It had been Harry, and here he was attacking a child far younger than his daughter, under Harry's protection—

He cried out as the swirl of color in front of him announced a Portkey, but not because his prey was escaping. He was on his knees, love struggling with hatred in his soul, trying to ignore the impulse to either lunge forward and interrupt the escape or stand and go back to his Lord.

It didn't matter, though. Just when he might have won free, the image of Pharos Starrise flashed in front of his vision, and his hand ached with remembered pain. The boy, the _whelp_, had dared to send him to the Unspeakables, had not let the grudge between the Bulstrode and Starrise families rest, had committed himself to doing what he could to insure honor was violated—

And hatred shook, and settled back into his soul. Adalrico stood and calmly Apparated back to tell his Lord what had happened, though, of a certainty, he already knew.

SSSSSSSSSSS

Millicent jerked her head up. The wards had fallen, and that meant Blackstone was no longer safe.

_It's a good thing that I already moved Mother and Marian elsewhere, _she thought, and stood, drawing her wand. There were still valuable _things_ at Blackstone, including their house elves and the library of magical books she'd been looking through, but no valuable people.

Other than herself, and she had remained here, searching through the Bulstrode treasures, tempting fate, both because not everything needed to be transported into exile and because she knew her father might come back.

If she faced Adalrico in battle, it was her duty to execute him.

She strode rapidly through the house to the front garden, her mind already shoving personal sentiments into a small closet and locking the door. This was her duty. One could not escape the oldest codes, not if one also benefited from them, and the Bulstrode family did. Sometimes those codes of honor had saved lives, or allowed a prisoner a chance to duel when he should have been killed immediately. But they were not allowed to simply claim the privileges from them. One had to pay the price.

And one price said that the family head was supposed to execute a traitor.

Millicent opened Blackstone's front door, and made her way towards the gate. The garden was soft with summer, and the roses her mother loved. Millicent felt a distant regret for that. It was entirely possible that the duel today would destroy the garden, and the house elves would not put it back together again if she was dead; they would go to her mother and Marian instead, and await their commands.

A man waited at the end of the path, beyond the gates. Millicent slowed on seeing him. This was not her father, but in some ways, including the half-wild gleam of his black eyes, he resembled him.

"Millicent Bulstrode," said the man, with a bow and a smile that was not a sneer or a smirk. "I am so happy to meet you at last. As the saying goes, 'Faint heart never won fair lady.'"

From that alone, Millicent thought she knew who he was.

"You are Evan Rosier," she said, and brought her wand up.

Rosier sighed and took a step forward. "Is the mere revelation of my identity enough to put an end to my courtship?"

Millicent didn't bother to answer, because Rosier was mad, and one didn't answer madness; one destroyed it. She used a Severing Curse first, because she knew that he had used them on his enemies in the past, and he Apparated out of the way, appearing again just a little to the left of where he had been. He reached out and stroked a rose, avoiding the thorns, his eyes on her wide and amused.

"I would give you a flower," he said. "But I think a girl like you would prefer stone. _Cautes!_"

Millicent dipped her head and rolled forward as the boulder crashed behind her, doing a full somersault. Rosier was already chanting another curse, one that would put a burning in her blood from the sound of it. Millicent knew that she couldn't dodge the curse, which struck inside one's shields, and so she gave him something else to think about instead.

She was her father's magical heir. She could wield the gifts of the Bulstrode line when she chose. And now she chose, reaching deep into the crystalline spaces around and inside her and drawing up the flame that usually slept beneath the surface. This was not something to be done lightly, both because it was traditionally a secret and because it removed so much strength from the caster. But _she_ was going to do it, and she did, drawing out and flinging the Bulstrode blackfire at Rosier just as he hit the climax of his curse.

His wand hand turned to stone, effectively disrupting the flow of magic from his body, and thus the spell. Rosier considered it for a moment, turning the living part of the limb back and forth to admire the smooth black rock. Millicent scrambled up, ready to try another Severing Curse.

"You have given me a gift," said Rosier, and it was hard to concentrate on the spell when he was speaking. "I shall have your father reverse it before I leave, of course, but that doesn't matter. You tried your hardest, and you gave me a gift of stone to answer the gift of stone I gave you." He gave her an appallingly genuine smile. "I wish that you were available for me to freely wed instead of kill, my lady. I think that we could have a chance together."

Millicent spat the curse in answer. Again he Apparated out of the way, and when he appeared, said simply, "_Caeco_," in a disinterested tone.

Millicent's sight went black. She knew the battle was lost, and whether Rosier burned the whole of the house, as he'd probably come for, or just lit the garden on fire and danced in the ruins, she could not remain there. Her life was more valuable than any books or treasures. That was especially true now, when she had only her little sister for an heir and no child of her own.

She focused on the Hogsmeade road and Apparated, but not before Rosier's voice came after her, soft and reverent.

"I have the best luck with Bulstrode women."

SSSSSSSSSS

It seemed like a long time before Harry could open his eyes. He was lying in a hospital bed; he knew that from the feeling of the sheets around him. And there was an enormous, crushing pain in his chest, which confused him. He knew that Voldemort had assaulted him with visions, but he should feel either all the pain of the curses he'd seen cast or none at all, and the only spell this agony could possibly have come from was the Slaughter Curse that had taken Priscilla.

_Taken her. She was dead. And Millicent blind, and Honoria wounded, and Medusa and Eos and Michael barely escaped—_

He tried to lunge upward, only to run into an invisible iron bar just above the bed that rather effectively sent him sprawling back down. Harry blinked, and blinked again, and then held out his hand and murmured, "_Accio_ glasses."

When they zipped over to him, he slipped them on, and his eyes narrowed as he saw the faint mark of a ward directly over his chest. _Well. What one can't go through, one can slip under._

He started to move, and his vision grayed. This was annoying. Harry leaned on his pillows and tried to recover his breath, and wondered why in the world the crushing pain in his chest had just got worse.

"Someday, you'll wake up wounded and have the sense not to move," Draco's voice said from the side. "But I think that day will be long in coming."

Harry turned towards him. "I have to know how they are," he said insistently. "And if the effects of the Slaughter Curse are still lingering, I know that Madam Pomfrey can cure them. It's not as though I received the blast of the full thing. I want to know how Millicent and—"

"All here," said Draco, pressing him back down. "Except for Honoria, who's in St. Mungo's. But Rhangnara and his children, the Rosier-Henlin woman and her children, and Millicent all made it. They're tired, they're grieving, but they're alive, and Regulus managed to reverse Millicent's blindness. The one who came closest to death was you. _Lie still, Harry."_

Grumbling, Harry dropped back onto the pillows, and was even more annoyed when his vision swayed again, making it hard for him to see Draco when he sat down in the chair beside the bed. "What did I get hit with?" he asked. "Is this some combined effect of the visions? Or—"

"It is not, Harry," said Madam Pomfrey's voice from off to the side. "The truth is that you fought the visions so hard, trying to throw off what You-Know-Who was doing, that your heart almost burst. It produced symptoms similar to a heart attack." She was in front of his bed then, waving her wand and murmuring several diagnostic spells under her breath. She seemed satisfied when each produced a stream of white light that tied together into a knot over Harry's bed, but fixed him with a piercing eye when he tried to sit up again. "You've strained your heart, and you are going to _rest_ if I have to keep you dosed with Dreamless Sleep."

Harry wanted to say that he couldn't have any Dreamless Sleep, he'd had some just a few days ago, but he lowered his eyes and nodded. He heard Madam Pomfrey bustle away, and then Draco took his hand.

"The Headmistress has made them welcome," Draco said. "She said they're welcome to stay here for as long as they like, and so is anyone else who flees to Hogwarts. The wards here are strong. We'll be able to keep anyone who attacks out, even if they have stones like the one Michael brought in. And now that we have it, we can study it. Rhangnara thinks he can create a variation on the stone soon that might keep wards from being drained."

Harry closed his eyes and nodded again. He was pondering whether he should tell Draco about the laughing words that Voldemort had planted in his head as he watched vision after vision happen, attack after attack occur that he could have prevented, had he not been locked helpless in the pain from his scar.

_I will take from you everything that you have loved._

Honoria and Thomas's family hadn't been targeted because they were his allies. Medusa Rosier-Henlin and Eos, the child he had named, whose godfather he was, hadn't earned Adalrico's attention because they were vulnerable. Millicent hadn't even been assigned to Evan Rosier because Voldemort thought sending Adalrico against his family was stupid.

It had happened because Harry cared for them, and that was all.

That sense of things had come through while Harry fought helplessly, stridently, to take back control of his mind. This was not the war it had been. Voldemort cared about immortality and taking over the wizarding and Muggle worlds and making his enemies pay for what they'd done to him, but they were secondary goals now. What _really_ mattered was torturing Harry until he made a stupid mistake, or gave in to the hatred and came to Voldemort's side, or died.

_And if what Madam Pomfrey says about my heart is true, that last almost happened today._

Draco cupped his chin and tilted his head up, and Harry went, opening his eyes slowly. Grief was beginning to hit him, and weariness, along with the general urgency. This time, the reason he had trouble seeing Draco was because he looked through a haze of tears.

"The first priority," Draco said calmly, "is keeping Voldemort out of your head. We had a talk about that, Harry, and you ignored me."

"The _vates_ path is strict," Harry whispered. "_I_ might not think that using Legilimency on Voldemort counts as violating someone's free will, _you_ might not think that, but it could count by the definition of the path."

Draco's grip tightened until Harry winced, and then fell down and back. "Then you can't be _vates_ anyway," he said. "It would need someone who didn't have a mad Dark Lord after his blood. I know that it matters to you, Harry, but you can't fulfill your ambitions if you're dead, can you?"

Harry sighed. His own death from heart failure didn't seem real to him, still, but that was probably because he had the other deaths and wounds in his head, and he _knew_ they had happened, while he had managed to live through his. "No."

"You can't," Draco said, sounding satisfied. "So. As soon as you're recovered, you'll take the offensive against Voldemort inside your mind."

When Harry hesitated, his fingers came back and tightened again. "I want a promise, Harry."

"I do promise," Harry said.

"Good." Draco's lips brushed his forehead this time. "Snape will be by to see you later, I think, and he's more than willing to help you with the Legilimency. For now—well, Madam Pomfrey granted me permission to do this. _Consopio_."

The sleeping charm took over before Harry could protest any more, and sank him down into darkness, and destroyed his plans for safehouses and sanctuaries. Drowsily, he felt that this was not fair, but then he remembered it also kept him from thinking about possibly falling off the _vates_ path and the attacks he'd failed to prevent today, and he welcomed it.

The last thing he thought he heard was high, cold laughter, and Voldemort's voice repeating the hateful words.

_I will take from you everything that you have loved._


	13. Dancer In His Mind

Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter!

This chapter might be a bit confusing; it's deliberately non-linear, following Harry's thoughts more faithfully than a strict chronological structure.

**Chapter Nine: Dancer In His Mind**

"How will we know when to wake you?" Draco's voice was steady, but his eyes glittered with a mixture of frustration and anger that almost masked the worry. Harry stifled the temptation to tell him that he wasn't such an icicle to someone who knew him well. This was serious, and Draco had never appreciated mixing jokes with matters of life and death.

"Connor can tell you better than I can," said Harry gently. "Remember, he'll be awake, even though he's carrying the visions. If he shouts for you or Snape to wake me up, then you'll know."

"And if he doesn't sense it?" Draco glared at Connor, who crouched on the hospital wing's hearth, talking to Parvati through the Floo. Her parents wouldn't let her return to Hogwarts or visit Connor anywhere else, but they would permit an occasional conversation. From the tone he could hear in Parvati's voice, Harry wondered how much longer she would put up with that. "He might not, you know. It's not as if he's experienced in magics of the mind."

"Draco, he has compulsion," Harry pointed out.

Draco had the grace to look abashed. For approximately two seconds. "I don't like this," he snarled under his breath, leaning towards Harry. "We should have created another bond between us. That way, I could have been the one to take the damn potion and carry the damn visions."

"We don't know if another bond would have satisfied the potion," Harry said calmly. "We know that the connection of blood and birth Connor and I have does." He left unsaid that he didn't trust Draco not to reveal his presence, and thus the plan, through indiscreetly cheering Harry on. Draco had done very well the one time he'd had to possess Voldemort, after the Midsummer battle, but he was still not very good at self-control without a defined plan like that. "This will work."

Draco let out a windy sigh and dropped his forehead onto Harry's shoulder. Slightly surprised, Harry raised a hand to touch his shoulder in return, and found it shaking as if he were a leaf caught in a high wind.

_He's afraid for me. Of course, that's most of it. I keep forgetting, somehow, that I matter that much to other people._

Harry leaned over and kissed the back of Draco's neck, feeling a rush of pleasure and wonder. He had once believed not only that no one would ever care for him this way, but that it was right no one did so. So many things had changed, and this wasn't the greatest, but it might be the one with the most personal implications for the two of them.

"I'll be well," he whispered into Draco's ear. "And if I'm not, then you can kick and punch Connor all you like, and I wouldn't even try to interfere."

Draco laughed, but the laughter was too thick at the back of his throat, as though tears were fighting to rise. "Of course you wouldn't try to interfere, because my kicking and punching him would mean that you were _dead_, you prat."

"Yes, but I won't come back as a ghost and protect him, either." Harry ran his hand through Draco's hair, forcing himself to think of nothing for a moment but the way it felt as it slipped through his fingers. He wouldn't have been able to do that a few months ago, either, since he was using his left hand. An emotion he hadn't felt before was bubbling to the surface of his mind, and Harry sat there patiently, waiting for it to rise so that he could see and judge it.

The bubble burst. Harry gasped as he felt a hungry pulse of wonder travel through him. He wanted to stay alive. He wanted to know more about how it felt to touch Draco like this, more about what would happen tomorrow, more about what might occur when he no longer had the threat of Voldemort hanging over his life like Damocles's sword. It was the first time he could remember being _emotionally_ excited that he had a future, instead of curious about what he could use the extended time for.

He tapped the back of Draco's neck, and when he lifted his head, Harry caught his lips in a kiss as hungry as the wonder. Draco made a muffled noise, but Harry didn't think it was one of protest, the way that his teeth and tongue and lips closed in a moment later. Harry let himself be borne backward, so that Draco could take control of the kiss. He was more interested in simply feeling.

"Harry!"

And that was Connor, and by the clink of glass as he set a vial back down, he'd just taken the Switching Potion. Harry could already feel the odd tugging in the middle of his forehead that would be Connor bearing the visions and pain that Voldemort sent at him, hopefully for long enough that Harry could shut the scar connection. Reluctantly, he pulled back from Draco and pushed at his shoulders.

Draco pulled away as slowly, nipping at his mouth several times. "We'll continue this when you come back," he whispered into Harry's ear.

Harry, still a bit overwhelmed, could only nod. Then he lay down on the hospital bed, and watched Draco take his place beside him with an air of determination. He had been concentrating so fiercely on that that he was a bit shocked to look over and see Parvati sitting down near Connor's bed.

She caught his eye and tossed his head. "My parents let me come through for this evening," she said. "Since Connor was doing something so vital to the ending of the war, and all."

The spark in her gaze made Harry feel a bit sorry for her parents and their probable attempts, come morning, to get Parvati back through the Floo connection. He saw Connor close his eyes, and then Draco squeezed his hand, and then the door of the hospital wing opened and Snape came through, bearing several healing potions in his hands that Harry hoped they were not going to need.

He closed his eyes and nudged forward into the scar connection. Any moment now, Voldemort would sense him and attack him with visions, but the visions would hit Connor instead, leaving Harry's mind clear.

And it was all thanks to the potion they'd found.

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry stared down at the book in front of him for a moment. He could feel the compulsion boiling along the edges of the black cover, waiting to spring like an unfolding set of spines and stick in the flesh and mind of anyone who opened it. He should know. Draco had been a victim of the damn book for two months of their fourth year.

But he needed a potion that could insure his mind was clear while he fought Voldemort and tried to eliminate the scar tunnel, and if there was any book that could tell him of such a potion, it was this one.

Reluctantly, he opened _Medicamenta Meatus Verus_, Melissa Prince's Potions book, and let the pages turn past his fingers. The compulsion unfolded just enough to hook to the major desire in his mind: to keep the visions at bay. It tried to curl deeper than that, to compel him to brew the potion and do nothing else until the brewing was done, but Harry fought it back. He thought he heard a sulky snarl, as if the book were a child not used to being denied what it wanted.

The pages stopped turning. He looked down, and blinked.

_Switching Potion._

The ingredients were simple enough, even common; Snape surely had comfrey in his stores, and two identical chips of red stones, and hippogriff feathers. It was the conditions, which were listed under the potion, where Harry found the reason that this was not more widely used.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

_Ready?_

Harry heard and did not hear that question with his ears. When he glanced to the side, a misty representation of Connor hovered there, his grin wide enough to swallow a whole pickle. Harry shook his head slightly. In truth, this bond between them always existed, and this shade of Connor always had a presence in his head, but most of the time Harry wasn't paying attention to it.

_Yes,_ he answered. _I want you to tell Draco and Snape, or Madam Pomfrey, at any moment the pain gets too much for you._

Connor snorted, and Harry had the feeling that that wouldn't be happening. He sighed. He appreciated that Connor wanted to make up for the years that he'd neglected Harry by protecting him now, but sometimes it simply went too far, with Connor acting as though he were personally responsible for every blow inflicted by their parents, Dumbledore, Voldemort, and Sirius during those years.

He could only trust his brother, though. Connor had agreed to take the Switching Potion and do this for him, and Harry could hardly turn away from the plan now because he was afraid that Connor might strain his heart out of Gryffindor nobility.

He plunged into the tunnel ahead of him.

Almost at once, he felt Voldemort's Legilimency stir. He wasn't a very good Occlumens, at least not compared to someone like Snape, so his outer defenses consisted of offensive projections instead. The moment Harry triggered them, they were supposed to latch into his mental probe, drag him to a halt, and cause him pain until the Dark Lord could attend to them and see what was happening.

This time, though, the first probe slid straight through him as if he were a ghost, and traveled along the bond the Switching Potion had opened into Connor instead. Harry heard his brother gasp, and paused, looking back.

_If I feel you do that again, I'll tell Draco_, Connor snapped.

Harry blinked, and reminded himself that the longer he delayed, the more agony his brother would suffer. He darted forward, and the tunnel opened in front of him. As Draco had said, only half the tunnel was Voldemort's, and the traps that kept lunging at him were complemented by layered defenses that resembled Harry's own magic. He began to draw on them, pushing a fog of Occlumency ahead of him like a cloud bank.

He felt Voldemort's anger, the rage building like a storm, and permitted himself a moment of intense satisfaction that might show on his misty face as a smirk.

_Let's see what you do now, Tom._

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

"But what _good_ is it, then?" Draco drummed his fingers on the table. "If it 's supposed to switch dreams or pains or something else embedded in one person's mind or body to the mind or body of another, what _good_ is it if you can't _choose_ the target?"

"You're thinking about it the wrong way," Harry murmured, smiling at him over _Medicamenta Meatus Verus._ The book bounced, sulky even now that it hadn't been able to take control of him and compel him to finish the potion before he did anything else. Harry stilled it with one hand, and looked again at the recipe. _Three hippogriff feathers, shredded into three parts each. _He picked up a knife and began to strip them off, making sure that each third got an equal portion of the plumes on the feathers. "Whoever invented the potion didn't want to target someone else—for example, they didn't want to make their enemies suffer the pain of their own wounds. That's obvious from the fact that the 'target,' as you put it, has to drink the potion willingly. It was originally invented to enable the husbands of fragile wives to share their labor pains, so that the births of their children didn't kill them."

"But it's even more restricted than that, you said." Draco craned around upside down to get a look at the book. Harry floated a wooden spoon up and tapped him on the back of the head. Draco jerked away, glaring at him.

"Stay back, please," Harry told him. "This book took you once. It'll do it again if you don't watch out." He floated the hippogriff feathers into the cauldron and picked up the first chip of red stone, concentrating intensely to impart it with some of his own magical essence. When he felt the stone warm beneath his hand, he cast it into the potion, and watched in satisfaction as a cloud of scarlet steam drifted up and the potion thickened, sudden waves of bright liquid sloshing against the sides of the cauldron. "Yes, it's restricted. The person who takes the potion and the person switching the pain, or the dreams, or whatever it is, out of themselves have to be related in at least two ways. One of them is a blood bond. So the potion would work between a husband and wife who happened to be first cousins, but not between unrelated spouses or just two cousins. Of course, when so many pureblood families were intermarrying so closely, that really wasn't a problem most of the time."

"We have the bond of the joining ritual," Draco said stubbornly. "And I know that the Malfoys and the Potters intermarried seven or eight generations ago."

Harry shook his head, eyes locked on the bubbling surface of the potion. When the bubbles leaped above the rim, then he needed to add the second red stone. Right now, he cradled it in his hand, thinking of Connor and concentrating on the bonds that he shared with his twin. "The bond of blood has to be closer than that. The book said that the Light Lady Calypso McGonagall, when she was married to her husband Thomas Mackenzie, tried to share the labor pains of their first child with him. They were fourth cousins, and they thought that was close enough. But it wasn't."

"And—"

"And the Switching Potion is fatal in one of three ways," Harry said softly. The bubble crested the rim, and he cast Connor's red stone in. The liquid thickened yet again, this time settling back into place languidly. The bubbles detached themselves from the surface and drifted above it, glimmering. Harry reached out and popped the largest, letting the liquid fall on his hand, mingle with the salt of his skin, and then tumble back into the potion. "One is if the target drinks another potion within five minutes of drinking this one. Another is if the target drinks more than half the potion. It has to be _exactly_ half in order to work. And the third way is if the blood bond between the drinker and the original bearer of the pain or the dreams isn't close enough. It wasn't close enough for Calypso and Thomas. He died screaming, and their child died, and she would have followed him if her magic hadn't been powerful enough to keep her from death."

"So that's why she joined with Achernar Black later and adopted a magical heir," Draco muttered.

Harry nodded, and then leaned in and blew on the cauldron. Besides the salt of his body, it needed his breath. The liquid gave a shrill whistle back, and changed color to a silver mass that reminded Harry unfortunately of Snape's Imperius potion. He shook his head quickly, to clear it of the memories. "She couldn't stand the thought of another husband and another child after that, but she fell in love with Achernar when the Seer told her that Achernar's soul wasn't completely lost to darkness, and then she adopted the magical child to have an heir."

Draco was silent for a moment. Then he said, "There are magical ways of forging blood bonds, Harry."

"But I don't need to, when Connor and I have the double bond of blood and being born at the same time," Harry said softly, and pulled a hair from his head, watching the cauldron intently. There should be a maelstrom forming in the center—yes, there it was. He tossed the hair nearly into the middle of it, and the maelstrom molded over, the whole of the potion becoming one smooth dome. "So he'll take half the Potion, and bear the visions for me while I attack Voldemort to close the scar connection, and then I'll take half the Potion when I'm done and accept the visions back."

"Why not leave them with him, if he's so willing to bear them?" Draco muttered.

Harry rolled his eyes and glared at him over his shoulder while he dipped a single finger in the potion, again letting it taste of his skin and sweat. "I am _not_ going to answer that."

"He could do this at least some of the time," Draco persisted. "And he's willing to do so. I talked with him about it."

"You—" Harry cut off what he wanted to say. Draco would see nothing wrong with asking if Connor could carry the visions beyond the term that Harry spent attacking Voldemort, because he did not care about Connor the way that Harry did. So long as the people Draco loved weren't suffering, he did not give a good damn about the rest of the world. Harry had always known that, but sometimes he forgot, and then it was brought home to him in this dramatic way.

"Never mind," he said. "We _are_ switching back when this is done, Draco, and that's final."

Draco folded his arms and looked as sulky as the potions book.

SSSSSSSSSS

Harry came in under the cloudbank, which had Voldemort furiously lashing and stinging, trying to see through the "smoke" and strike at him. Harry ignored the impulse to confront him straight on. That was probably some of the Gryffindor bleeding through, since at the moment he shared Connor's emotions as well.

Then he felt the first tidal wave of anxiety, and knew that Voldemort was attacking in earnest, trying to make him suffer. Connor was suffering, instead, and while Harry couldn't feel the physical sensation of pain, which they'd exchanged, he could feel the fear. He held his breath and pushed forward again, refusing to let it panic him, doing his best to understand the multi-layered structure of the tunnel around him.

Then the fear stiffened like blades at his back, and Harry smiled grimly. Connor was doing what he did best: fighting back against the fear, asserting his courage and the stubbornness of his House. Harry was glad. He knew Connor had agreed to take on the pain of his own free will, but still, he did not like sharing it.

He studied the tunnel again, and narrowed his eyes when he realized just how many layers coiled under each other. If he wasn't mistaken, there were fifteen layers, with an incomplete sixteenth growing underneath that, a transparent red sheath that suddenly ran out on the side of the tunnel that Voldemort controlled, turning the rest of them a paler shade of scarlet.

_And why not? There's probably one layer for each year. Fifteen years we've been connected, with the sixteenth not quite complete._

Harry could sense even more than the number of years in that compacted tunnel, though, and he reached out carefully, seeking through and beyond it under the cover of his cloud, trying to see if what he felt was true. Yes, it was. The scar connection interconnected with two other tunnels, one flowing straight between him and Voldemort, the other floating off into space and going—somewhere. Harry could not quite be certain of where.

_The Unspeakables' Stone said something about a third, _he remembered. _A third person missing from the equation between me and Voldemort? There was a place in my aura for a third, it said. A guest._

Harry gnawed his lip, not sure what to make of that, and then shook his head. He understood the construction of the scar connection now; its deepest link was with the straight tunnel between him and Voldemort, along which their shared magic flowed and the evil bird had come. That meant he should be able to call up his own Legilimency and close the tunnel off, or at least seal it with a plug like a plug of stone. Voldemort would have to exert much more serious effort to get through that than he would through Harry's Occlumency.

And Harry understood why, given the conversation he'd had with Snape the day before.

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

"Sit down, Harry."

Harry did, never moving his eyes from Snape's face. He suspected he knew what the conversation would be about, though it was hard to concentrate on. He'd just come from Priscilla's funeral, where Thomas had burned an effigy of her body and cast the ashes to the four winds, while their children softly sang a mourning song he'd found in an Egyptian book behind him. Thomas had a lost expression on his face, as if the ceremonies of the funeral should have brought his wife back to him, and he could not understand why they hadn't. He _had _tried to return to their house for his wife's body, but the Death Eaters had taken it. Harry had put a hand on Thomas's shoulder and felt the old wizard half-curl into him, as if seeking comfort. Luckily, if there was one thing Harry was experienced in doing, it was offering comfort.

Before that, he'd been with Honoria in St. Mungo's, listening to the outlook for her leg. The Healers were confident that they could give her a new one, less confident that she would walk on it before a year was out. Ignifer had listened fuming, with bits of fire leaping from her fingers and nearly setting the blankets alight several times. Honoria squeezed her hand lightly and smiled at Harry. "Not only do I have a lover willing to be a pair of hands and feet for me," she'd told him, "but I have one willing to light a fire, and perhaps cook for me. If I had any house elves, I would set them free immediately."

Ignifer had not thought that was funny, and in the ensuing argument, Harry had had time to look at the cleanly cut space where Honoria's left leg had been and reflect that, if all went well, the war would be over before she walked again.

So, understandably, even though he knew Snape was going to talk to him about Legilimency and Occlumency, his mind was not in the same territory as those two branches of magic.

Snape brought him back as soon as possible.

"Draco informs me that you have refused a reasonable solution to your problems with Voldemort by refusing to use Legilimency."

Harry jerked his head up, and scowled. "Draco is too presumptuous sometimes," he said. "I have decided to use it. I didn't use it until now because I didn't know if dominating use of Legilimency like that would cost me the _vates_ path." And there was another reason, too, a reason that he wouldn't tell anyone about, because they would chuckle and scoff and say he was overreacting. So that secret lay in the back of Harry's mind, and was his to keep.

He knew he would have to face it if he used Legilimency, though.

"A path that would demand such strict standards of you is not one worth following," Snape said. "I would have thought that you would know that already."

Harry growled softly in the back of his throat. "This isn't like my training," he said. "I chose to be _vates_. It has to be that way. Treat it like a duty, and it doesn't work, either."

Snape leaned forward. "You should have learned this truth about me from the thestral incident," he said. "It seems you did not. In the contest between the welfare of magical creatures and your life, Harry, I choose your life. If what you do endangers your life and not your status as _vates_, then I would ask you to stop. And if that path endangers you or makes you unhappy, then I would advise you not to follow it."

Harry growled again. "And if I wish to follow it anyway?"

"Then I would consider it my duty to inquire into the matter more closely." Snape was far too calm for this discussion, Harry thought. "And stop you, if I thought you were not looking out for your own safety. Meanwhile, Legilimency will guard your safety. Thus it is of more importance."

_If I didn't have a guardian who valued me for myself, instead of for what I could accomplish, my life would be very different, _Harry reflected. _Poorer, yes, but easier sometimes. _"I am going to use it," he said.

"Good." Snape sat up briskly. "The Dark Lord will find it harder to combat than your Occlumency."

"I don't understand why," Harry said, coming to the heart of a frustration he couldn't express to Draco. "The Dark Lord is a master Legilimens. Doesn't that mean he should get through a block like this _more_ easily?"

Snape shook his head. "It has to do with the nature of the branches of the magic," he said. "Occlumency is defensive, and ultimately more passive. It guards its boundaries and does not attempt to pass beyond them."

"I knew there was a reason I liked it so much. It's just like me."

Snape gave him a pained glance, and continued. "Legilimency is more offensive, and active, and alert. It not only guards its boundaries, if it is used this way, but patrols them, and looks beyond them for threats, and attacks the threats as they manifest. You may think of it as a sentry, while Occlumency is more like a snare. Thus the Dark Lord, Legilimens or not, will have a hard time passing a barrier made of your active and reaching will."

_Reaching_ at least sounded better than _dominating._ Harry nodded. "I am going to search for a potion that will enable Connor to carry some of the visions while I attack," he said quietly. "Is there anything else that you would advise me to do?"

"You must _want_ to defeat him," Snape said, enunciating every word carefully. "If you do not, Harry, then you will not put up enough of a fight. Do you understand? You must want to win."

_To dominate him_.

The words sent a slick shudder of revulsion up Harry's spine, but he was determined. He nodded, his eyes never looking away from Snape's.

"I promise."

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

Now, Harry let his breath out, and tried to calm the rapid beat of his heart. He had to do this deliberately, even though he wanted to hurry through it when he felt Connor's determination increase, and stop his brother from suffering. _He chose to participate in this, _Harry reminded himself. _He knew what he would bear. He's not an innocent victim that you have to hurry to spare, but an individual fighter whose sacrifice you must honor. Use the time he's buying you._

He pushed his will forward, scraping it like a hook through the layers of the scar connection. He was picking them up like fallen leaves from a forest floor, stirring them, rearranging them. Voldemort, not understanding why his attacks didn't make Harry falter, and baffled by the Occlumency cloud under which Harry sheltered, kept striking in the wrong direction.

Harry paused, swallowing nervously. In the next moment, he must _rise_, and exert his will to overpower and control another person.

He was afraid of the secret he could feel churning in the back of his mind, like the stir of a hidden beast in oily, dark water.

He took one more moment to remember how Connor had agreed to bear the pain of the visions for him, and to remind himself that his brother didn't consider him an evil creature for using Legilimency like this.

SSSSSSSSS

"Of course I will, Harry."

Harry frowned slightly. "Connor, you don't understand yet. I'm asking you to—"

"To use this Switching Potion, and to make sure that you don't have visions of pain and death and blood while you're attacking Voldemort." Connor reached across the library table and latched his hand onto Harry's arm. "I understand perfectly, Harry. You have to have your mind clear while you do this, and I'm the one who has the perfect connection to you, according to the Potion. So I'm doing this."

"But the pain—"

"I know the pain," Connor said quietly. "I saw the way your face twisted in pain when you were in the hospital wing fighting off the visions so hard you _almost burst your heart, _Harry." He managed, as did most of the people around Harry, to make this sound as if it were bigger than it was. Harry wondered that, after he'd come so close to death so many times, the people who loved him were still affected by each one as if it were the first time. "I know that it will hurt. But I want to do this, Harry."

"Why?" Harry asked.

Connor looked at him as if he were mad. "Because you're my brother, and I love you," he said, speaking as if to a very slow child.

Harry had shaken his head and lunged across the table to hug Connor, because there were no words he could offer that were adequate next to that.

SSSSSSSSSSS

Now, in the scar connection between his mind and Voldemort's, Harry closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

_I can do this._

And out he lashed, driving his Legilimency as a hook that tore up the tunnel, destroying the sides of it that he controlled, using the material of the connection itself as the material of the plug.

Voldemort sensed him at once, of course, and attacked with pain again. This time, he could see it slide past Harry's charging form and into the bond that connected him to Connor. Harry knew it wouldn't take him long to try another tactic, probably clamping down on the magic that flowed between them, so that Harry didn't have as much strength available to use his Legilimency.

Harry wasn't about to let that happen. He pushed forward, and when the attack would have faltered, he dropped pure will behind it, the same will that had made him shatter the egg-shaped stone in first year and rescue Draco, the same will that had led him to plan the Midsummer battle, the same will that had driven him to free the thestral. This time, the only difference was that he was commanding someone else. And if he didn't let himself think about the full implications of that, he could avoid being sick.

_Back._

The plug of Legilimency rolled up behind him, demanding obedience, a snarling force at Harry's shoulder that tore into the vulnerable parts of Voldemort's mind. Harry went with it, and saw memories and thoughts sleeting past him like autumn leaves that Voldemort certainly didn't intend for him to see.

He made out one, gleaming and white, that was different from the rest, and grasped it, tugging it with him. Inside the jaws of the Legilimency probe, he had time to study it without Voldemort knowing he studied it.

The white bulk was the vampire hive queen, as Harry had thought it might be. And she hovered above a map of Hogsmeade.

Harry swallowed. _That's where Voldemort intends to send her, then. And soon. I will have to find help to face her. _Not even a Lord-level wizard could face a hive queen alone. It had once been the most common way for Lords and Ladies to die.

He ripped into Voldemort's mind after that, deliberately vicious, using the thought of innocents dead in Hogsmeade and Hogwarts to propel his anger. He commanded Voldemort to back off, to lie down, to stop sending visions to him. Those commands would not all last, but while Voldemort reeled and fought for the will to obey, the scar connection was tearing itself up, hopefully beyond repair, behind him.

Harry was watching all the while, because his mind was divided into quarters. One part led the attack. Another examined the occasional captured thought within the Legilimency, hoping to find useful information. A third reached back to the tunnel and Connor, checking the progress of destruction in one and fear in the other. And a fourth hovered, keeping an eye out.

He felt it when his secret tried to rise, when the Legilimency probe shifted its nature.

Suddenly it was less about making sure that his enemy could not hurt him or others, and more about taking revenge. Suddenly he found himself half-enjoying the power of command he had over Voldemort, even liking the picture of someone who had hurt him so much cowering at his feet, and he knew the enjoyment would grow if he waited.

Harry rolled, snapping the Legilimency probe back towards the tunnel and his own mind, and leaving Voldemort to repair the ravages Harry had just created as best he could. It would not be so easy next time, Harry knew, if there were a next time. Voldemort was poor at Occlumency, and that meant he'd left large regions of his mind undefended, relying on offense instead. Besides, he'd never thought Harry would do something like this. Now he knew, and Harry expected him to repair the holes in his defenses.

He could feel Voldemort's wary respect following him, mingled in with the rage and the hatred, and a certain excitement. He would think that there was more chance of luring Harry to his side, now that he had seen that dark power of domination that flourished in him.

The chance was no greater than it had ever been, Harry thought, as he examined the tatters of the scar tunnel and nodded in satisfaction. Voldemort would not be using _that_ to access his mind again unless he somehow mastered enough Occlumency to disguise the Legilimency's claws. And Harry was more likely to feel the claws before he could do that.

It seemed so easy. He could have done this before, if he'd wanted to.

Harry hadn't wanted to, because of that easiness.

He knew he needed to return to his body, to full consciousness, and to Connor, but he spared a moment to look into the part of his mind that contained his secret. He felt the dark part surge forward at the attention, whining, eager, wanting to rise from its pool and control everything it could.

Hermione had given him some Muggle quote a few days ago, something about looking into the abyss and having it look back into you. Harry could have told her he didn't need to look into abysses. He had his own personal one in his head.

He stared into the darkness, and the darkness stared back. This was the part of him that other people didn't want to believe existed, Harry thought, clinically. This was the part of him that usually manifested only as Dark rage, and only when he was pushed beyond endurance. Other people thought those were only flashes of temper, and they were always telling Harry not to worry about them. They didn't understand that the darkness that produced them was not a flash, it was there all the time, and it was the part that fed on stories of Lords and Ladies and whispered that Harry could be like them if he wanted. It would be so easy. It would mean that he could accomplish so much more, and so much faster, than he could with the persuasion and bargaining and dancing that were his usual tactics.

He could use compulsion to make wizards feel what it was like to be a house elf, and that would convince them as nothing else could. He could "persuade" people with nightmares, with dreams that intensified their emotions such as Falco had used, with private threats that would make them nod in fervent agreement with his principles and think it was all their own doing. He could trick people into oaths tighter than any he had taken. He could surpass his boundaries, sometimes, just a bit, and that would see all magical creatures freed in a few years. And didn't they deserve it, really, when they'd been chained for centuries, and wizards had been greedy and arrogant enough to bind them in the first place? And didn't he deserve to see some of his enemies writhing in pain for what they'd done to him?

Harry breathed in and out, carefully, his eyes on the darkness. He knew it was here. He couldn't get rid of it, because that would involve destroying some essential parts of himself, or, at best, returning to the training that had estranged him from so much else that was good, and convinced him that he didn't deserve pleasure along with revenge. He couldn't suppress it, because that would result in the box or the ice again, and an eventual breakdown. He couldn't let it out, because in even a few moments of freedom it would hurt so much, and undo so much that he'd tried to do.

He just had to live with it, and keep it in its pool. It wasn't so different from what other people had to do. Everyone had the potential to do immense harm, if let free. Harry just had more power than most to make his damage lasting, even permanent.

The darkness whined at him. Harry shook his head, and turned, striding rapidly back into his own mind, and his own body, and then a pair of blinking eyes, as he sat up—for just a moment, before Draco's exultant kiss knocked him back into the pillow.

"How are you feeling, Harry?" Snape asked quietly, when Draco let him up again. His eyes were guarded, dark, but the tension in his face eased as Harry nodded and told him about the process of destroying the scar connection, without mentioning the darkness. All of them were so convinced that the darkness didn't exist, and they would try to convince him of that, too, if he let them. Harry couldn't afford to forget that it existed. So he let them think what they wanted to think, while he knew the reality, and the darkness slept and was his.

He glanced across to Connor, relaxing when he saw that his brother had his eyes open and that they were sane. Parvati was gripping his hand, but Connor looked at Harry first, and gave a little nod.

"We were both right," he said. "You were right that it hurt. And I was right that I could bear it because I love you."

He closed his eyes and fainted then, and Madam Pomfrey came bustling forward to give him the pain potions.

Harry, meanwhile, picked up the half-vial of Switching Potion that was left and swallowed it before Draco or Snape could object. It was right that things go back where they belonged, whether that was the capacity for visions of blood and pain returning to his mind, or the darkness sliding back into the abyss.


	14. Intermission: The Bad Seed

**Intermission: The Bad Seed**

Indigena sighed, and gently touched the flower on the end of her right wrist, which wept cold, soft dew, to her Lord's forehead again. There was little else that anyone could do for him. He had been speaking to them as normal an hour ago when his face had begun to twitch, and then his hands, and then he'd collapsed. Indigena supposed it had something to do with an attack by Harry. She'd been close enough to hear him snarl, "_Legilimens!_" and could think of no one else he would need to use the spell against. The captive Death Eaters were all firmly chained, without the need to repeat it.

"What do you wish me to do?"

Indigena glanced up at Lucius Malfoy. _Would that he had been this compliant all his life. My Lord's return to power might have been achieved more easily. _"For now, stand guard," she replied. "If someone approaches the burrow without permission, then let me know at once."

"Lieutenant." Malfoy bowed to her and mounted the packed dirt stairs that led to the light of the upper world. Watching closely, Indigena saw one leg jerk out of alignment, as though he were struggling to walk in a different direction than the one she'd chosen for him. But it settled again, and he climbed the steps without looking back. Indigena let out a small breath. At least she was in no immediate danger of being left alone with five Death Eaters who were no longer under her Lord's strict bridling. Adalrico was brewing, Hawthorn was asleep, Lucius was on guard duty, and she would order Feldspar on his mission to the Ministry in a moment. The other Death Eaters were away on missions of their own, mostly trying to get another vampire hive to join Voldemort's ranks.

"Lieutenant."

And the fifth Death Eater she had to be wary of, Evan Rosier, was edging closer to the Dark Lord's bed. Indigena gave him a patient glance. He still moved as though there were something wrong with his arm, though Adalrico had reversed the blackfire his own daughter had cast. Indigena thought he did it purely for pleasures, or perhaps to remind her of the injury. She'd laughed for an hour when he returned with that limb dragging behind him. It would be like Evan to assume that therefore his keeping an arm at an odd angle would bother her.

"What do you wish, Rosier?" she asked.

Evan paused reflectively. Indigena waited, not in the least afraid. Her Lord had imparted a vision of Evan's mind to her through a Pensieve, when she'd expressed concern, yet again, that he might break free and attack them. He'd had months to study its labyrinthine ways while they controlled and manipulated Evan, their bad seed, and Severus Snape, their healthy test plant, from last July until this June. Now he knew the weakness that had let Evan break free, and it was the only one of its kind. Even _that_ freedom had needed a push, from Harry and his _vates_ powers. He was their tame dog with a muzzle on this time, going where he was told to, expressing his madness in carefully chosen ways.

Indigena still regretted, somewhat, that they'd not been able to snare Snape. He was a skilled Potions maker, with a native cleverness that Adalrico could imitate, once he knew the steps of brewing a potion, but not equal. And they had worked on him so long. Her Lord had been taking information from his mind about Woodhouse and Harry's knowledge of the Horcruxes, and passing it to Evan so that he might lure Connor Potter out of hiding, long before he had attempted full possession. And it had been Harry's fault, again, that Snape had become a wild seed.

_Harry is annoying, _Indigena decided.

"Lieutenant."

One advantage of a conversation with Evan, Indigena thought, was that one could think about anything one wanted until he actually made a mad pronouncement. He let minutes slip by between his sentences, sometimes, and then they often didn't connect with one another. His mind wandered in wild, tangled ways, and Indigena sometimes felt the same pleasure in following those paths that she did when threading someone else's garden.

"Evan," she repeated, and started to stand. She should go to Feldspar and order him on his mission. He probably would not be killed. He was only supposed to establish contact, intrigue his target, and then come back. Of course, that target had guards around her. Indigena would not be surprised if her nephew died. She rather hoped he lived, but only so she could continue to make him feel badly about what he had done, and how helpless he was, and how all of this was his own fault.

"I have a secret," Evan said, trotting to catch up with her.

"Do you." Indigena scanned the burrows around her for a moment. Ah, there Feldspar was, brooding in a corner. He couldn't even the use the time productively as the other captive Death Eaters did, sleeping or practicing spells. That was the kind of spoiled child her sister had raised him as.

"It's a large secret," said Evan solemnly.

_This is the child-like side of him._ "I'm sure it is," Indigena told him, and started to turn towards Feldspar.

"You can see it, if you like," Evan said, and then moved his hand out from behind his back. Indigena had a tendril at the ready. He was probably going to draw his wand and cast a spell at her, but she could fend him off. The thorns on her back simply moved too fast for any ordinary human to counter, as Percy Weasley had learned to his sorrow.

But he didn't hold his wand in that hand. He held one of her Lord's Horcruxes, Helga Hufflepuff's cup.

Indigena only stared for a moment, too paralyzed to do anything, and his wand, which he held in the other hand, flicked, sending one of those damn internal spells he was known for through her defenses. "_Bruma interna!_"

Inward winter, that curse meant, and it worked well enough. Indigena felt her tendrils slowly wither, curling close, as the torpor of cold seized her and convinced her plants it was winter and they should sleep. She dropped to one knee, struggling, but her mind had turned as sluggish as the sap in her veins and the leaves that shivered under her skin. She could observe, but not think or feel.

Evan held up the cup, solemnly. "I felt the wards on it fail when Harry attacked our Lord," he said. "I know he will restore the spells as soon as he wakes, but for right now they are down. And you don't have a mental link with the captives as the Dark Lord does, so you can't call the others to stop me."

He smiled at her, the smile that told Indigena, from a distance that prevented the revelation hitting her full force, that Evan Rosier was not quite as mad as they had all thought he was, and therefore not quite as restrained. "I know that you would ask what I am going to do with it if you were yourself, and so I will oblige you with an answer. I am going to cause trouble." His smile widened.

Then he Apparated out, and with him went the Horcrux.

Indigena knelt where she was, trying to recover, desperately seeking the warm air around her and reminding herself it was June, not December.

And through her body at the deepest levels, down at the soil, ran a whisper of premonition. _This is not good._


	15. Safehouses

**Chapter Ten: Safehouses**

"Harry! Wait."

Draco considered it unfair that someone just out of bed after spending most of a day fighting Voldemort in his mind could outwalk him. Harry heard his call, though, and turned around, smiling at him. Draco hated how absent the smile was. Harry's eyes were half-glazed, his thoughts obviously swirling around the list of names and houses that he clutched in one hand.

"I thought about what you said to me this morning," Draco said, when he'd recovered his breath enough to stop panting. Malfoys did _not_ pant. "And I agree that I'm unlikely to live in the Manor in the near future. Its biggest value to me at present is storing the treasures my family's accumulated, so that the Ministry would have a harder time touching them than my Gringotts account."

Harry's jaw actually fell. Draco didn't know whether to feel proud of that or not. He _had_ wanted to surprise Harry, but he wasn't sure if the nature of the surprise was the best that it could have been.

"You'd—you'd actually let Malfoy Manor be used as a safehouse, Draco?" It seemed that Harry was having trouble breathing.

"Yes," Draco said softly, and put a hand on Harry's shoulder, stroking a bit. Even that felt incredibly good. They really hadn't had enough time for each other lately, and it was driving him mad. "You said you needed strongly-warded magical houses, ideally ones that you wouldn't have to cast an Unplottable Charm on because they'd already have it, and that you'd want to have them extensive enough for as many refugees as possible to live there in comfort."

Harry shook his head. "I was only explaining the specifics of the safehouses we needed because you asked, Draco. I don't expect you to give up your ancestral home to become one."

Draco's surprise steadied. So Harry really was gratified. He wasn't thinking that Draco was so selfish that there was no way this offer could be sincere. "I'm willing to," he said softly. "Of course, I'll need to move my treasures into one room and ward them off, and I need to change the wards on the outer shell of the Manor, which only permit family members or invited guests, so that other people can actually enter it. But I'm willing to do that, Harry."

He bit his lip to keep the earnest tone in his voice as he finished, and the earnest look on his face. Harry was looking at him as if he'd made the sun rise, or his dreams of Voldemort stop.

"Thank you," he said. "I—that relieves a large part of my mind about where we could send—" He stopped and shook his head. "Thank you," he repeated, and his eyes shone in a way Draco hadn't seen since the beginning of June. "I appreciate what it cost you to offer this." He leaned in and gently kissed Draco on the cheek.

_Not as much as you might think, _Draco thought, his eyes fastened hungrily on Harry's face as he drew back again. _I want you less stressed, Harry, and not only for my own reasons. Anything that relieves that stress is a good thing. And it's true that I'm not going to use the Manor in the near future, unless you move there, because I'm never going to be far from your side._

Harry went on looking at him for a moment more, then abruptly jumped and glanced down at his wrist. Draco saw a yellow line there, tugging at his hand. "Bloody time spells," Harry murmured. "I've got to meet with the Rosier-Henlin family and ask if they would prefer to stay here or go to one of the safehouses. And then I need to speak with Regulus about which Black house would be the most suitable." He threw Draco an apologetic glance. "I'll speak with you later. And thank you again, Draco!" he called, as he broke into a trot up the hallway.

Draco stayed where he was for a moment, soaking up the remnants of that smile. Then he turned determinedly in the direction of Gryffindor Tower, where Connor was staying. He'd made a promise to himself, and he'd continue as he'd begun.

He needed advice about changing the wards on Malfoy Manor, and he knew the wards on the Potters' ancestral home of Lux Aeterna were closer to the ones he'd want. So he would speak to Connor and receive as much advice as he could towards constructing new wards for the Manor. Apart from having the intended practical effects, that would show Harry that Draco could work with his brother, and remove a potential source of stress for the future.

Draco knew better than to ask for sex when Harry was like this. Harry would do it, but out of duty, and his mind would be elsewhere attending to a million other duties at the same time. Draco preferred to relax him as much as possible before he asked, and put him into the kind of mood where Harry would be inclined to look favorably on him anyway.

Meanwhile, it had the effect of binding him more closely to his future brother-in-law and actually improving the war effort. Everyone gained, from what Draco could see.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry knocked gently on the door in front of him. "Mrs. Rosier-Henlin?" he called, because he knew that they weren't close enough for him to call her "Medusa."

The door opened, and Harry blinked a bit when he realized Michael was standing there. But he nodded and asked quietly, "Are they awake? I can leave and come back again if they're asleep."

"Eos is asleep," Michael murmured, and moved out of the way. All the while, his gaze was intent and burning on the side of Harry's face. Harry pretended to ignore it. They'd had their troubles, with Michael thinking he would make a better partner for Draco than Harry would, but those had fallen quiet several months ago. "But Mother is awake. You've come to speak to her about the safehouses?"

Harry nodded, distracted from speaking by the sight of the room in front of him.

He didn't think he'd ever seen so many warding spells. They cut the air like the glitter of swords, and most of them focused on the cot where Medusa's four-month-old daughter, Eos, lay sleeping. Medusa herself sat beside the cot, her head lifted, her wand in her lap, and her face haggard.

Harry tensed, then let his breath out slowly. Yes, their involvement in the war had cost the Rosier-Henlin family, but he hadn't forced them to become involved. Given that Charles had joined him after Voldemort's return, it had been a calculated risk from the beginning. He would not start feeling guilty over it, not now, when there were more productive emotions he could be feeling.

Medusa seemed to realize he was there, then. She sat up, and her knuckles turned white on the wand. "What do you want?" she whispered.

"To keep you and Eos and your sons safe," Harry answered, and drew the list of safehouses out of his pocket. "I wanted to know if you would prefer to stay at Hogwarts or go to a safehouse. I've had ten volunteered." _Eleven now, _he thought, given that Draco had volunteered Malfoy Manor, but he preferred not to count on that one yet. He still didn't quite understand why Draco had done it, and it was possible he would change his mind later, or Narcissa would make him change his mind. "All of them have powerful wards."

"Not as strong as Hogwarts?" Medusa whispered.

Harry shook his head. "No. On the other hand, they're also less central to the war, and Voldemort is less likely to attack them than he is to attack Hogwarts, given that I'm here and he wants me."

"But if an attack happens on a safehouse, we're likelier to die."

"It's a possibility." Harry watched her, heart aching, and wished there was something more he could do. The failure of the wards on her home seemed to have inspired Medusa with a paranoid distrust of all defensive spells, unless they were outlandishly strong. Harry thought he could have talked her out of it with a month of silence and quiet and phoenix song.

They didn't have a month. They had, perhaps, a few hours, if he snatched them around all the other tasks he had to accomplish. And so far, Medusa had given no sign that she wanted that kind of help from him.

Harry forced himself to remain silent while Medusa thought. "An attack on Hogwarts is a sure thing?" she whispered at last.

"Eventually, yes, if I remain here." And Harry had no plans to move in the near future. Here were Snape's potions labs, Madam Pomfrey's hospital wing, McGonagall's strong and backing presence, the Founders' wards, and enough room to shelter many of his friends and allies. _And a Horcrux, too, though damned if I can find it yet. _"The safehouses may fall victim to an attack more easily, but an attack at any single one of them is less certain than an attack on Hogwarts."

"If we moved from sanctuary to sanctuary—" Medusa began, and then shook her head. "No, no, that's not possible. The Dark Lord could attack us while we moved, and I do not think Eos would survive." Her hand drifted out and caressed her daughter's forehead.

"There's no need to make up your mind immediately," Harry said quietly, and placed the list of safehouses on the table near the bed, the one place in the room not extensively warded. "I simply wanted to see if you already had. Do think over it, ma'am. I only want to make you comfortable and safe."

"You can't do that," Medusa whispered, and bent over her babe again.

Harry sighed, though he made sure to keep it silent. What wearied him more than anything else was the sight of someone else's despair. And, lately, it was also the burden that hung heaviest around the neck of his commitment to keeping his darkness at bay. He saw Medusa like this, and the vengeful impulse went clawing and rearing up in him.

Save, of course, that the one who had done this to Medusa was Millicent's father, once an ally and friend, and that Harry still had hopes to win him free if he could.

He started to turn away, only to find Michael standing behind him. "I'll walk you out," said Michael, in tones that said he meant to say something else and Harry had no choice in the hearing.

Harry frowned. He nodded, though. Michael was over his infatuation with Draco; he had made no move that could be attributed to that in months. So perhaps he wanted to give Harry advice on how to approach his mother in the future, or share his concerns about the safety of his family. Merlin knew that everyone could use a sympathetic ear and a shoulder to support them, Harry thought, his mind presenting him such a strong image of Snape that he lost track of his movements until he found himself in the hallway with Michael, the door of Medusa's room shut behind them.

Michael led him a few steps down the corridor without speaking. Harry followed right behind. Michael turned back around again, gave a deep breath, and started.

"I want you to readmit me as a sworn companion."

Harry shook his head and stepped past him, intent on finding Regulus. He moved back and forth between Grimmauld Place and Hogwarts so often these days, talking with Snape and Peter, that Harry wasn't entirely sure of where he'd be at the moment, but he'd look in Snape's rooms first.

Michael snatched his arm and spun him around. Harry blinked once, then blamed himself for being caught flat-footed. He would have to maintain his alertness in case Death Eaters broke into the school or a traitor turned up.

_That's another thing to speak about with McGonagall—escape tunnels for when Voldemort does attack. I don't want everyone trapped the way they were last Midsummer._

"You owe me an explanation," Michael hissed.

"No, I don't," Harry said, a bit irritated at being forced to speak on a subject he'd considered finished. "You didn't make a good sworn companion. Your family needs you right now, since Owen isn't there often enough. And I don't trust your motives for asking to retake the oath."

Michael's jaw actually fell open. Then he shook his head and spoke in an oddly wistful voice. "What will convince you I've changed? That I don't—that is, I've accepted that I can't have Draco as my own partner and that he's not in love with me, and that I only want to help you at the forefront of the war?"

"To be with your twin?" Harry guessed. He knew there were points in his life where Connor following an oath like Owen's would have been impossible for him to live with, unless he took the same oath. He watched narrow-eyed as Michael gave an eager nod. _I don't think he's lying, but there may still be other motives mixed in with his love for his brother, ones he's not even aware of._

The temptation to use Legilimency to read Michael's mind and see if that was true struck him suddenly, so strongly he almost pushed his will forward before restraining himself. Harry clenched one hand into a fist. He knew the mental battle had been necessary to restrain Voldemort, but it had given an unnecessary push to the part of himself that enjoyed dominating and controlling. He would have to watch, to make sure he did not start thinking that was moral.

"I'll have to speak with Bill, Charlie, and Syrinx as well as Owen," he told Michael. "If they don't think they can work with you, then I won't let you swear the oath again. And Draco will at least be consulted." He wasn't sure he should let Draco's opinion rule the day, since Syrinx was the one assigned to stand at his shoulder, but he deserved some warning about what might happen. "And I expect some commitment to your duty this time, and not just a commitment to pulling Draco's pants off."

Michael flushed, and nodded. "I'll remember, Harry."

"Good." Harry eyed him, then started towards the dungeons. This time, Michael didn't call him back, but Harry looked over his shoulder to see him standing with his arms wrapped around himself, as if he were cold.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

"I don't think you can."

Draco frowned. This wasn't the reaction he'd expected to his noble quest of working with Connor and learning what kinds of wards would make Malfoy Manor more hospitable to guests. "What?"

"I said, I don't think you can." Connor was leaning on one of the hideous red-and-gold beds in the Gryffindor sixth-year boys' room, staring patiently at Draco. Weasley's bed was the only other one currently occupied, since Longbottom, Thomas, and Finnigan were at home with their families. Draco supposed he was glad that Weasley wasn't here at the moment to witness the argument; thank Merlin for small mercies. "Lux Aeterna's wards depend on intent. They welcome people whom their owner likes, and keep out those he dislikes. And it depends on _unconscious_ motivation, as well as conscious motives. They sometimes offer nasty surprises, such as when it turned out that my ancestor didn't trust his wife and the wards prevented her from entering, even though she'd committed no crime. I'm fairly welcoming, so the wards should keep out only my enemies. But if you try to put the same kind of wards around Malfoy Manor…" Connor shook his head. "Malfoy, how many people do you hate and despise? Anyone who's not a pureblood. Anyone who's a Light wizard. Anyone you think might be possible competition for Harry. What would happen if Calibrid Opalline wanted to shelter there, or a Muggleborn family? Would you actually let them do it?"

Draco lifted his head. "I could learn to lower my prejudices."

"No, you can't."

"Yes, I can."

"No, I don't think you can." Connor leaned forward and tapped him hard on the chest. "Living with Harry should have lowered those prejudices if anything could. I expected either you'd change your mind to please him—"

"I most certainly _would not_," Draco said, outraged that anyone could think such a thing of him.

"Yes," Connor said, without remorse or backing down. "You would." Then he paused, and his voice softened. "Or, at any rate, I thought that about you, once. I don't think it now. You're stronger than that."

Draco glared at him.

"But that just makes it worse in this case." Connor shook his head, eyes fastened to Draco's. "Don't you see? The very strength of those prejudices could bounce someone off the wards while she's being chased by Death Eaters, and that wouldn't do. I don't think you should use these wards on Malfoy Manor, Draco. Much better to go with ones that would defend your home and the people who shelter there, but don't link to either blood or belief. You're—pardon me, but given this war, you're a misfit in both of those."

That hurt more than Draco had expected. "Just because my father has betrayed Harry doesn't mean I will," he said, making sure to sculpt his response as quiet dignity. "For one thing, I have no Dark Mark."

"But a lot of people will think of you as Lucius Malfoy's son, and therefore as part of the opposition," said Connor. "Untrustworthy, at best. And if you remain as prejudiced against Muggleborns and Light wizards as you are, you won't earn a good reputation for yourself, either. They're part of the war effort. And since Voldemort wants to exterminate Muggleborns, this war is largely about them. People will judge you on what you say about them, whether you want them to or not."

Draco gritted his teeth. "I won't change my mind just because it would make things easier."

"Sometimes I feel more Slytherin than the Slytherins," said Connor, rolling his eyes. "No one's asking you to change your beliefs, unless you actually will use wards based on intention. _Lie_, you great git."

"_You're_ encouraging lying?"

"I'm a Gryffindor," said Connor. "I follow the rules—except when it comes to enemies, or when the rule is a stupid rule. I'm not Hermione, and I'm not even Ron, who has a whole Light pureblood tradition to live up to. Being halfblood makes you exempt from things like that. I'm saying lie, pretend you're making a great sacrifice by opening your home up to people you scorn, and you'll win a better reputation. After the war, you can go back to being a bastard, if you want."

"I shouldn't have to change even that much of my behavior," Draco pointed out. "Harry doesn't care."

"But Harry's allies will. And should. And you're the one who's supposed to be his major political and personal support." Connor sat up, staring into his eyes. "I love my brother, Draco. I'll do what I can to make sure he wins this war. Sometimes that's fighting in battles, and sometimes that's bearing Voldemort's visions for him, and sometimes that's making sure the people in his life who _should_ know things like this already don't do stupid or silly things and tangle up our war effort. So, choose. Hopefully you'll choose to lie, and this is one less thing I'll have to worry about. If you don't, then I'll deal with you later."

Draco raised an eyebrow. This close, staring into his eyes and talking in that soft voice, Connor Potter was somewhere near impressive.

"Harry will know the truth."

"Yes, but others won't, and it's those others you're trying to impress," Connor said impatiently. "You won't have to spend the rest of your life with them, just a few months." He paused, then added something entirely unfair. "And it was the Malfoy pride that got your father dragged off, wasn't it, Draco?"

Draco ground his teeth together, then nodded stiffly. "Fine. A lie in public, and no wards based on intention."

"Good." Connor hopped off the bed. "I know that Thomas Rhangnara is researching those stones that destroyed the wards around the Maenad Press and the other places the Death Eaters attacked. Let's see what wards he would recommend that you use."

Draco followed, trying to convince himself that he hadn't made a bad bargain, and that pride could come after the war. Really, he did know the answer to that, of course. He'd made the decision himself already, when he knew he would do what was needed to help Harry, regardless of personal cost.

He just wished it hadn't been Connor Potter who pointed it out to him.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Regulus hadn't been in Snape's rooms. Harry finally used the phoenix song to call on him, and Regulus told him he was in Silver-Mirror. But he didn't mention who else was with him, which was why Harry was more than surprised to walk into a room with three Blacks.

_Or four, if you count me._

Harry pushed the thought away. He had never been comfortable with thinking of himself as Regulus's _actual_ son rather than legal heir, and he would not start now. There were glories in the bloodline he could never hope to match, and beliefs associated with it he would rather not carry. He gave quick nods, now, to Regulus, and to Narcissa, and to the formidable woman rising quietly to her feet from a chair next to the fire. She was Andromeda Black Tonks, he knew, though he'd met her only a few times.

"Ma'am," he acknowledged.

Andromeda studied him coolly. Harry thought her more reserved even than Narcissa. Of course, that could be because he'd known Narcissa far longer, and impressed her on his first trip to Malfoy Manor enough that she'd dropped the reserve. Harry stood in front of her eyes and awaited judgment.

Abruptly, Andromeda sank into a curtsey. Harry noted the position of her hands on her robes, and the degree to which she bowed her head, and felt himself flush as red as a Weasley's hair. This was the sign of submission she would probably use to a Lord, assuming she would ever choose to follow one.

"Harry," she said, standing. "It is my hope that someday you will adopt the Black name and become even more than Regulus's legal heir."

Harry eyed her cautiously.

"But, for now," she continued, sitting back in her chair, "I am willing to help you as matters stand."

"Good," said Harry, wondering if he should be relieved. He knew that Andromeda had contacts in France who had proved useful during the rebellion at Woodhouse, and even since, selling them Wolfsbane ingredients at reduced prices. But he also knew she and Narcissa had spent most of the last seventeen years in a constant argument, which was one reason Andromeda hadn't joined them at Woodhouse. He hoped their presence in the same room without shouting at each other meant a reconciliation of sorts was in the air. He turned to Regulus. "I've come to discuss which Black house should become a sanctuary—"

"We've already discussed that," said Regulus, with a wave of his hand at his cousins. Harry was startled to see that some of the dark circles under his eyes had faded, and he looked more cheerful than he had for a month, since the attacks at the beginning of June. "Cobley-by-the-Sea is the only choice. Wayhouse might accept them and change its mind at any moment, there are too many treasures here, and the portrait of my mother refuses to come off the wall in Grimmauld Place. Her shrieking would rather disconcert people who are coming there for peace and safety, I think."

Harry inclined his head, relieved the decision had been made so quickly. "Then I'll be at Hogwarts—"

"Not yet," said Andromeda. Narcissa shot her sister a quick glance, but Harry couldn't tell what it was for. The cool, commanding tone she'd used, perhaps. Andromeda didn't appear to notice. Her eyes were locked on Harry. "There is another task appropriate to your station."

Harry did not like the sound of that, but he refused to let any discomfort show in his face, voice, or posture. This was the very oldest set of rituals he'd been trained to, maintaining composure in front of Dark purebloods, and he returned to it as easily as breathing. "What station?"

"The effective leader of wizarding Britain at the moment, since Acting Minister Juniper continues to issue edicts and prepare for war by alienating those he cannot afford to alienate," said Andromeda calmly. Harry half-nodded; he'd seen the latest ridiculous announcement in the _Daily Prophet_, that Juniper was now seizing the accounts of some wealthy Dark wizards or those with tarnished reputations, such as arrests in their backgrounds. The Ministry claimed to need the money for the war effort, but it was only making them enemies. "It is appropriate that the leader of Britain ask for help from other wizarding communities."

Harry stared at her. Other than for very small and specific matters, like the Wolfsbane, that had not even occurred to him.

He found his tongue a moment later. "You're suggesting I write to the Ministry of France—"

"And Spain, and Portugal, and Austria, and any other country in Europe with a wizarding community and no immediate conflict draining their resources." Andromeda gave a serene nod. "Yes. Let them know how matters with your war effort stand. Outline the danger Voldemort poses. At the very least, they might send Aurors to you. You are creating battle-trained wizards, but that will take time. You need more people who know defensive spells already and can take up the work of protection, of assembling forces, of working in groups and giving commands, of dividing resources."

"I don't have the _right_ to ask that," said Harry, a bit aghast. He was thinking of what Juniper would do if he received a similar letter from a sixteen-year-old wizard in France or Germany or Belgium. Laughing and tearing up the letter would be the least of it. He might strike back for the insult.

"Yes, you do," said Andromeda, her eyelids lifting a bit, making her dark eyes look much wider. "Or do you think the leaders of France, Spain, Finland, and the others so stupid that they do not know what will happen should Voldemort win here and cross the Channel? I promise you, he will never content himself with the British Isles, and they know that. This is their war, too."

Harry half-shook his head. His thoughts were reminding him of history, though, of the fact that many different wizarding communities had joined together to fight Grindelwald. He was the last Dark Lord, as Jing-Xi had told him, who had tried to extend his control beyond the boundaries of one country. And since Voldemort would want the same thing, the course Andromeda suggested was unsurprising, really, and probably their best chance.

It was hard to let go of the image of the war as being about Voldemort's Horcruxes and the prophecy, though. He would need help to defeat him, but he had been sure it was help he would find in Britain.

_With Juniper as Acting Minister? With opinion shifting about me every time Hornblower publishes a new issue? With so many wizards who are still unsure about me because of Dumbledore and my parents and all the rest, or because they personally lost family to Death Eaters, or because they hate the Malfoys?_

Perhaps he was being foolish to imagine that he would succeed without international help. As he had told himself on the Astronomy Tower, his greatest weakness was that he was fighting a defensive war while Voldemort was fighting an offensive one. And that was not likely to change; he could hardly abandon innocents to Voldemort's spells, even if they had not asked specifically for his help.

He looked Andromeda in the eye. "And you're sure they won't be insulted by the fact that I'm so young, and hold no official position, and yet I'm asking them for aid?"

"I can promise you," said Andromeda, a cold smile sliding across her mouth this time. "Besides, Harry, you forget. You are very nearly of age. Twenty-nine days, now. And the war is likely to continue much longer than that."

Harry nodded. "Very well. I don't know any of the languages involved. Will translation spells help?"

"I shall help you," Andromeda said, standing. "I know French. For the rest, yes, you can use translation spells, or you may use Latin, which is still accepted as a diplomatic language. I believe that your ally Ignifer Pemberley speaks it as her native tongue."

"Thank you," Harry murmured, and then turned to Narcissa, who had been abnormally quiet. "Did you know that Draco is considering making Malfoy Manor into a safehouse?" he asked.

Narcissa sat up abruptly. "He is _what_?"

Harry nodded a bit. He had been sure there were some sacrifices Narcissa would not countenance making for the war, which meant he wasn't going to accept Draco's offer of the Manor just yet, not until he knew it wouldn't change overnight. "He said that he'd have to change the wards and lock his treasures away, but he is considering it."

"I am going to speak to him." Narcissa crossed the room quickly and vanished in the direction of one of the fireplaces. Harry stifled a chuckle. She could have used the phoenix song spell, but he had the feeling that she wanted to be face-to-face with her son when they talked about this.

"We shall want to emphasize the danger from Voldemort, of course," Andromeda said, her hand closing firmly on Harry's arm. "As well as the fact that you are _vates_, and your larger task is helping wizards deal with bound magical creatures, not fighting one Dark Lord. If you are ever to negotiate the release of karkadanns, or sea serpents, or that monstrous thing that the Spanish wizards have got chained up in Altamira and have no name for, then you must survive this war."

Harry looked half-helplessly over his shoulder, hoping that Regulus might come with him and help to deflect Andromeda's attention. Regulus smiled at him, the smile of someone who had been with two Black sisters for a few hours and was happy for his escape.

Then he closed his eyes and went to sleep.

Harry sighed, and let Andromeda sweep him into the main hall of Silver-Mirror, where a mound of parchment and quills awaited.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

"And we are agreed?"

Erasmus looked carefully around the room. It had taken days of arguments, long persuasive speeches, reading of historical test cases, and debate about the moral rights of prisoners and others, before they could arrive at this point. But, finally, it had been done. And though some of his allies still looked doubtful, none of them could raise good arguments any longer.

Even Aurora looked tired. Erasmus was not surprised, though. She had been one of those to argue hardest against this new edict, certain it would turn more wizards against them than it would win. But Erasmus had pointed out that the edict bound everyone, including the Ministry—he would not sink to the level he had when he captured Snape, Pettigrew, and Black, using Veritaserum without permission—and so could not be considered unfair. And she had entwined her destiny with his. She was in too deep to abandon him now.

Slowly, one by one, heads nodded. Members of the Wizengamot Erasmus felt he could trust, and all those sworn to the Order of the Firebird, were gathered in this private meeting hall. Erasmus wondered if someone would one day make a list of their names, if Hogwarts school-children would recite them, or if they would drown in history and be as forgotten as poor Rufus someday.

Drowning would be a fate that he could welcome, he thought, as long as the changes they made endured.

Harry had been right about one thing. Erasmus and his government could not do morally questionable things and then pretend that they were different from their opponents. In fact, they could not continue many of the regular practices of the Ministry and call themselves different from Death Eaters.

The time was ripe for a revolution. Harry had proven that. He was moving in the wrong direction, though, trying to fling the net so wide that it would include many morally questionable elements in the Ministry's circle of protection. Erasmus had set his standards, and it would not happen with his ring. This new law was the first step in a bold new direction, one that would act as a winnowing fire and purge the Ministry and the British wizarding community of the laxities that had allowed He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named to arise in the first place.

_Not even Rufus could stop bribery and corruption in the Ministry. But then, perhaps he had grown used to such things, complacent in his office. And he was slipping in any case, following the road of good intentions towards a dark bottom. The Ritual of Cincinnatus proved that, and so did his close friendship with Harry and his giving in to his demands. We must prove we stand strong, and that we will not allow things other people may have taken for granted. We are not Rufus's Ministry, and we are not the Order of the Phoenix. We are the Order of the Firebird, the older and higher Light. We do what is right, not what is convenient._

He met Cupressus Apollonis's eyes across the table, and saw that the Irish wizard was smiling, faintly. He had asked many questions during the process of drafting the law, harsh, piercing, uncomfortable questions. Erasmus was indebted to him. Otherwise, his definition of Light might have remained soft, and that was not needed. During this time of war, they needed a definition that would meet He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named like a bared blade.

"It is decided, then," he said aloud. "Tomorrow we declare martial law, and tomorrow we make Dark Arts illegal in the British Isles."


	16. Like Shards of Ringing Glass

Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter!

**Chapter Eleven: Like Shards of Ringing Glass**

"Because you cannot."

His mother was beautiful, forbidding, severe as an ice sculpture, but Draco could be forbidding, too, when he chose. He curled his lip and faced his mother with a lifted head and a carefully still body. He had seen Lucius use the same posture, sometimes, when Narcissa had chosen to argue something he would absolutely not give way on.

"I'm fulfilling the pride of my name in my own way," he said curtly. "And I think I would know if I were sinking into the shadow that you suggest, Mother, doing things solely for the sake of Harry's approval and love. I am _not_. I haven't since third year, when I realized that his magic could be an unconscious compulsion on me. Since then, I've been careful to judge my actions."

"As you were during fourth year, when you were so careful as to summon Julia," his mother murmured.

Draco flushed, but forced himself to shrug. "So it was a bit further on in time than third year." He sat down in the chair in front of the fire. His mother had called on him through the Floo in the hospital wing, and _she_ was the one in the undignified position, kneeling so that her head showed through the flames. There was no reason that he should make himself look undignified by pacing the way he had, when there was a perfectly good seat available. "But I am not asking Harry to accept Malfoy Manor as a safehouse out of some misplaced wish to make up for Father's actions _or_ because I wanted to see the expression Harry would look at me with when I did. I am doing it because I want to, because we need this, and because if we can change the blood wards, then the Manor will be perfect for refugees."

"You are sacrificing your own pride," said Narcissa, the accusation she had begun the conversation with.

"Some of it could stand to be sacrificed," said Draco, and glared at her some more. When that didn't seem effective, he tried, "It's a much lesser sacrifice than blood and lives, all told."

"Even Muggle lives?"

"I don't know if Muggles will come to live in the Manor, unless they're the families of Mudbloods," Draco began, baffled. _Why would she be worried about that at all—_

And then he understood. He actually was surprised he hadn't understood in the first place. He stopped himself with a swallow and a gulp, and looked at Narcissa's perfectly sculptured, mask-like face.

"This isn't about a loss of pride for the Malfoy family," he said softly, "or even about the way that you think I'm giving up too much to be with Harry, just because I want him. You're prejudiced against Muggles, aren't you, Mother? You don't want to think of them touching the same chairs that you did, walking between our portraits, looking at our furniture."

A faint tinge of color graced Narcissa's cheeks, after which she shook her head. "You misunderstand me, Draco."

"Really?" Draco didn't think he did. "Then explain it to me, please."

"I already have." Narcissa laid one hand in the fire, so that Draco could see it hovering beside her head. "You are making a mockery of yourself if you do this, Draco. Harry would not demand so much of you, and that means that you should not give so much up. You should retain the Manor to become the graceful home for your future that it will be after the war."

Draco studied her thoughtfully. "Harry said that Regulus was allowing one of the Black houses to become a refuge. And Harry did the same thing before the rebellion started, sheltering that werewolf pack he suddenly acquired in Cobley-by-the-Sea and Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. Do you think they disgraced the honor of the Black name? Somehow polluted the houses so that someone like you or Regulus or Aunt Bellatrix could never live there again?"

He'd used the comparison to Bellatrix on purpose, partly to make his mother wake up and _think_, and partly because he knew that Aunt Andromeda would have no objection to being in a house where Muggles and Mudbloods had walked. He privately suspected that, rather than simply incompatible personalities, was the source of her long quarrel with Narcissa.

"That is different," said Narcissa stiffly. "After Sirius, no heir could possibly disgrace the line more, and they stand to gain in recovered glory with Harry. For the Malfoys, however—Draco, your father's name is becoming a taunt and worse in the newspapers. Do not do this, and degrade it further."

"I think it would recover it, not degrade it further," Draco said quietly. "Since, after all, it would show that at least some Malfoys are on this side of the war, and willing to make amends."

"You will be giving up part of a world they can never understand, to be pawed by them," said Narcissa fervently. "I do not mind fighting beside them. I do not mind planning with them, or acknowledging that they make fine allies to Harry. But you must have some place to go where you may escape their—their prejudices, Draco." Draco had to fight to keep from laughing aloud. "Some place where the atmosphere is of magic, and the untainted blood shines."

"And yet, if the Grand Unified Theory is correct, then Grandfather Abraxas was a halfblood, and the Manor accepted him anyway," Draco said. It was the first time he had ever even hinted that he might believe that. The problem was that he had to. He'd looked through the documents Rhangnara had assembled in support of that, and they stared him in the face with evidence that wouldn't go away. Draco supposed he would feel a certain smugness, once he got over the shock. He was more pureblooded than his own father, since the contamination was a comfortable distance from him.

"Draco," said Narcissa quietly. "I _am_ worried about you. You need not say such things, need not repeat such things, for Harry to love you."

Draco rose restlessly to his feet again, aware that it was an admission of weakness, and yet unable to stop himself from making it. "Why does everyone think I would be so weak as to change my mind merely because Harry wants me to?" he asked. "You, his brother, Harry himself, sometimes. I am my own person. I make up my own mind. And giving up the Manor to act as a safehouse is my choice."

"You cannot know that for certain, Draco."

Draco stared at her. "And now you sound like Harry did when he feared using unconscious compulsion on me," he said flatly. "It sounds just as silly now as it did then, Mother, in case you were wondering."

"I would ask that you keep the Manor in silence and solitude," said Narcissa, "a refuge that you and I can retreat to when the world becomes too much, a sign that not everything about the Malfoys shall change because Lucius defected."

"The reasons I'm changing its status are more complicated than you think they are," Draco said calmly, "just as Lucius didn't properly defect to the Dark Lord, and it's more complicated than that."

"Draco—"

For the first time ever, Draco spelled a Floo connection through which his mother was speaking shut. Then he sat down in the chair and took several deep breaths, closing and opening his eyes now and again.

_I know what I'm doing. What I'm doing is what I want to do. And if it turns out I'm making the decision more because I want Harry to love me than for any other reason…it's not as though that would matter. Harry doesn't love someone because of what that person can do for him._

Draco stood up and left the hospital wing, intent on having a rest, and then a good back-rub from Harry if he could find him.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry wondered, afterwards, if he knew something was wrong even before the owl deposited the _Daily Prophet_ in front of him. He dropped a Knut into its pouch, and it hooted and took off. Was there a suspicious softness in the hoot? Did it linger a moment, looking as if it were sorry for the news it delivered?

The problem was that he couldn't be sure. The moment his eyes fell on the headline, it seemed like he always should have known this would happen, and his reactions before the fact became near-impossible to distinguish from ones after the fact.

_**DARK ARTS BANNED! BY ORDER OF THE MINISTRY**_

_**Acting Minister calls the decision 'a step in the right direction'**_

_By: Rita Skeeter_

Harry heard gasps all up and down the table, and guessed that most of the professors and the students who had stayed at Hogwarts had seen the headline by now. He didn't glance up, though, but drove straight into reading the article. His heartbeat sounded in his ears like the ocean heard through a seashell. There was the faint, elemental hope that he might somehow have mistaken the sense of the headline, and if he could read the article, and the truth, everything would be set straight.

That didn't appear to be the case.

_In a surprise announcement early this morning, Acting Minister Erasmus Juniper, flanked by some members of the Wizengamot and the newly-organized Order of the Firebird, said that Dark Arts have been banned in Great Britain._

_"This news is long in coming," he said. "Of course, some Light wizards have wanted to take this step for years, but the prominence of Dark wizards in British social life prevented them. Now, though, we're fighting a war against an enemy who wantonly uses Dark magic for his own purposes. I don't think anyone sane could argue that _now _is a time for us to ignore this issue._"

_The Acting Minister clarified, in response to questions from the press, what he meant by "Dark Arts."_

"_We drew on the old definitions of Dark when we composed this law," he said. "Thus, magic that creates compulsion, that is savage and wild, and that promotes subterfuge, in the very broadest distinctions, is banned. This includes pain curses, the compulsion gift, and most glamours and illusions that are used for a harmful purpose instead of an aesthetic or educational one._"

_Juniper denied that the definition is too broad and that the law will snare more innocents than criminals or Death Eaters._

"_That's simply not the case," he said. "Most people don't use Dark Arts in their day-to-day lives. And of course defensive magic like the Shield Charm and most Transfiguration goes untouched. We're trying to encourage our people to fight a just war, a Light war. We wouldn't take weapons out of their hands. But the Dark Arts are more like swords than shields. They're designed to strike, to hurt, to cause pain. That's why Death Eaters use them. No ordinary, innocent citizen of wizarding Britain has a reason to use them._"

_The Acting Minister acknowledged that the new law will face heavy opposition._

"_I don't expect everyone to welcome the news with open arms," he said. "Things are changing at last, in the Ministry and in our world, and most people are afraid of change. But this is a great wind, a roaring fire that will burn out all the careless impurities and lazy ways of doing things that we've allowed to creep into our ordinary lives. Everyone will follow it eventually, but I don't deny that following it at first will take great courage, conviction, and commitment to the vision of a Britain free from evil._"

_He promised to follow this law with a program to clean up bribery and other kinds of corruption in the Ministry._

_"We've allowed ourselves to become lax," he said. "All sorts of perfectly good prohibitions have lapsed, and our children grow up thinking that amoral and even immoral actions are perfectly fine, because they see their elders doing them. I hold to a vision of a sterner, brighter world._"

Harry laid the paper down and put his hand over his eyes, fingers rubbing gently at his brow.

_I can't believe he would be this stupid._

Except that, on one level, he could. Juniper had already said he was determined to fight this war without losing any moral ground. That would involve turning away from many actions that some leaders would condone because of expediency, but which Juniper would consider wrong. He was being consistent with his principles, no matter what the cost. It was noble, it was honorable—

_It's consistent with a titanic stupidity at this point in time._

"He can't _do_ that," said Hermione, sounding upset. Harry looked up in time to see her fling her paper down and stare at if it were a Horklump trying to crawl up her leg. "He can't, can he?"

"He's Minister," said Zacharias, who sat next to her, his mouth a thin line. "Well. _Acting_ Minister." He turned the front page over. "And if you look at the second page, you'll see that he's declared martial law. Ministers can do whatever they like in times of martial law, with only minimal input from the Wizengamot."

"But that's not fair," Hermione whispered. Harry could see why it was hitting her so hard, even though he couldn't imagine her using Dark Arts outside of battle. Hermione liked things to be right, proper, fair, and even if the authorities didn't always agree with her definitions of those things, she trusted them not to go too far outside the boundaries. This had shaken her faith.

"In this case, yes, it's unfair," Harry said, and froze for a moment as every eye along the table snapped to him. Then he let out his breath and went on. _Prat. Of course they're going to pay attention to you when something like this happens. Like it or not, you're in an important position here, and it's only going to get worse when and if those Ministers answer the letters Andromeda had you write. _"But that's the way Juniper thinks. He can't allow anything to impede the progress of his morals, even if it impedes the progress of his war. You read it." He tapped the article again. "He knows that not everyone will support this, and he doesn't care. He wouldn't think that the support of those people who object was worth having."

His mind was finally stepping past the shock of the announcement, and into the consequences of it. The very thought made him ill.

_Merlin. Wizards are going to protest this, and turn against the Ministry when they were trusting it to stay strong and defend them from the Death Eaters. The panic that Juniper managed to stave off in the wake of Scrimgeour's assassination is going to spread now, because people won't know if their favorite defensive spells are classified as Dark Arts or not—except by asking, which somehow I can't see many of them doing. The feeling of vulnerability to Voldemort will increase exponentially. I can see many people going into hiding or fleeing the country rather than risk getting killed by Death Eaters or arrested and put into Tullianum. Martial law means they won't even have the dignity of a trial, unless they're prominent Light purebloods, maybe._

_And the people who do support Juniper will be put on the defensive, trying to justify his choice. The Light will be on the defensive. Merlin knows how the newspapers will stir things. _Harry let out a gusty sigh. _I think I just got piled with a lot of responsibility I didn't ask for._

"Harry."

He looked up. McGonagall was standing, her lips pursed in a thin line and her eyes holding a steely glint.

"Come with me to my office, please."

Harry nodded, and stood. He was startled when Draco immediately stood with him, and then Owen. Owen's face was grave, and he was giving McGonagall a look that suggested he suspected the Headmistress of designs to kill and eat Harry. Draco's expression wasn't much better.

_What the fuck, they know she's a friend_—

And then Harry understood it, and wanted to groan. _And she's a Light witch. They don't know her as well or trust her as much as I do, and they think she might turn against me because I've used Dark Arts in the past. This will set Light and Dark wizards against each other to an unprecedented extent, too, because it will make some people cling to their allegiances and think they have to prove they're Dark or Light. _Wonderful.

"You may bring your companions," said McGonagall, exactly as if she hadn't noticed Owen's tense shoulders or Draco's eyes, and then swept out of the Great Hall. Harry sighed and followed, taking the _Prophet_ with him. He didn't much regret the untouched breakfast. He wasn't hungry.

When they'd crossed through the halls and up the moving staircase to McGonagall's office—a journey made in absolute, and, to Harry, eerie silence—she sat down and stared at him sternly. "I wish you to know," she said. "that Hogwarts will remain open, and a refuge to any student and his or her family. It does not matter if the family is Declared Dark, or if the student uses Dark Arts, so long as they do not plan to hurt, kill, or torture anyone else residing here. That is the only absolute law _I_ intend to impose. Those who sow dissension in Hogwarts, of any kind, will have the wind for a companion."

"Even if they use Light spells to hurt others?" Owen demanded.

"Even if they do that," said McGonagall.

Owen relaxed, slowly. Draco didn't. "You know what's coming," he told McGonagall, in a flat, calm voice Harry had never heard from him before. "You know what it's going to make Harry, as an undeclared Lord-level wizard who welcomes both the Dark and the Light and is Voldemort's main foe." His hand stroked Harry's shoulder, then rose and traveled through his hair with that possessive little tug he used so often. Harry wriggled, trying to get it out—this was an intimate gesture he didn't like Draco displaying in front of other people—but Draco didn't notice. "Will you stand in his way and make his life more difficult? Or will you do what you can to spare him the torrent that's falling?"

"I will support him," said McGonagall, and though her eyes glinted again, she didn't speak of the inappropriateness of a student calling her out on her intentions towards another student. Harry bit his lip. The announcement hadn't sent the Headmistress screaming towards her allegiance, then, and eager to prove that she was part of the Light.

"You do know what it could cost you?" he asked softly. "The Board of Governors might not approve of the decision to keep Hogwarts open, let alone all the support that you intend to give me."

"They can go hang, then," said McGonagall, and Harry had to blink to make sure he'd got the full sense of her words, so utterly calm were they. "They can say what they like, make what laws they like. It in no way diminishes my support of my students, Dark and undeclared as well as Light. The Ministry has made a mistake if they sought to divide me from them."

Harry bowed his head, a bit overwhelmed. He remembered McGonagall as scrupulously fair, even a little _un_fair towards her own House sometimes, in her eagerness to show that she did not favor Gryffindors. "Thank you," he murmured. "But if it ever costs you more to support me than Hogwarts can bear, Headmistress, I'll urge you to think about moving away."

"The principles you represent are the principles I support, Harry," McGonagall said. "I cannot see that changing. One does not often have intentions that melt and run like water at my time of life."

Harry let out a little breath. "Thank you, Madam." He turned to Draco and Owen, and grimaced. "Come with me, would you? I have letters to write, and I think I could stand to have company to make sure I don't start burning them before I finish."

Both nodded, and followed him, Draco nearly as grim and silent as Owen was. For some reason, that reminded Harry he hadn't yet mentioned Michael's request to take the lightning bolt brand again.

_Nor will I, not right now. _The next few days, Harry could see, were going to be frantically busy, and mention of Michael would only divide him and Draco. At the moment, he needed Draco's support to an extent that depressed and frightened him, but which he couldn't deny.

_I cannot afford an argument right now._

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

"It will be all right."

"You _say_ that, but you can't know that," Hermione pointed out, even as she buried her head against Zacharias's chest.

"I can know that." Zacharias stroked his fingers through her hair, watching as her curls sprang back into place. He wondered if she had the slightest idea how much that simple and silly thing affected him, and decided not to tell her. It would only lead to an impression of her power over him, and she had enough of that already. "And do you know why?"

Hermione shook her head, not looking up. That alone told Zacharias how much she was shaken. Of course, unlike many other people stupid enough to assume it was something to do with a flaw in Hermione's character, he knew why. She'd always tried to be a dutiful person, always tried to follow the rules, and now she found herself declared a rebel through no fault of her own, since she'd used Dark Arts in the past to defend herself and others and would go on using them. Suddenly she was on the opposite side from the one she'd been following all her life.

"Because I'm Light." Zacharias bowed his head and touched his lips to Hermione's hair. He felt old, and strong, and far wiser than most people would attribute to his age. "And Light isn't what that doddering old fool thinks it is. We're proud, but we can see the end of our pride and work with other people. That's an ideal of Light that Juniper's forgotten, you know—cooperation and communication with others. He thinks he's so intelligent, cutting the Light off from the Dark, assuming that they can have nothing in common. But he's wrong. The first Ministry was Light because we _cared_ about reaching out to people who weren't like us. We knew we couldn't purge Dark wizards from the British wizarding population, so we didn't try. We included them instead, and built something with them that would keep them from their worst excesses, because then they would be destroying something that mattered to them, too." He smiled, and knew she could feel the movement of his lips against her skin. "And, of course, once we had them next to us, we could sneakily reeducate them and show them how much better the Light was than their puny Dark."

Hermione's laugh was watery, but real. She lifted her head and pulled him down into a profound kiss. "Thank you," she said, when their lips managed to part.

Zacharias didn't have to ask for what. He was intelligent enough to know what she would have said.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Connor wanted to kick things.

Instead, though, he took himself up to his room in Gryffindor Tower, sat down on his bed, folded his hands over his eyes, and counted to two hundred. Then to four hundred, because he had visions of torturing Erasmus Juniper with a Tickling Hex until he cried. Then six hundred, and finally the visions went away, and finally he could sit up and think about what he was going to do, in ways that didn't involve Tickling Hexes.

One thing was clear to him, one that he knew Harry was probably thinking of but might forget in the midst of all the other things he had to do.

_Light will fall behind if we can't come up with a way to represent it. Harry's undeclared. He's Light in his morals—more than he is Dark—but most people wouldn't see that because of his refusal to Declare. And a lot of his allies who are Light aren't close enough to him to serve as real representatives of our allegiance. The Opallines might work, since they're so respected, but they can't fight except in self-defense._

_There's only one Light person who really backs him enough, and is close enough to him in most people's eyes, to make a difference._

_Me._

Connor gave a single sharp nod, and sat up a little more. He knew he was having to be an adult, and most of the time, he resented that. He would have _liked_ to stay a child in the way that Dean and Seamus still were, at least for a little longer—the way that Harry and Lily had tried to keep him for the first eleven years of his life.

But now he had to be an adult, the spokes-wizard for Light and the single most prominent person to convince Dark wizards that not all Light wizards were insane and to convince people of his own allegiance that they could have a home with Harry, and he was looking forward to it.

He felt, as he had not since he first Declared, the presence of the Light like a burning sun in his heart. He closed his eyes and touched a fist to his chest, savoring the warmth.

Connor had Declared because he believed in and loved what the Light stood for. Especially, he believed in the necessity for not always getting his own way and having to voluntarily limit his impact on some beings in order to let them have free will. That lesson had been beaten into him with a stick by the events of third year. He'd seen what happened when he tried to get his own way with Harry all the time.

_No more._

He knew one thing he could do, and so he went to do it—writing a letter to the _Vox Populi_ that he would ask them to print with his name on it. He would speak in the most general terms, as a Light wizard to other Light wizards, so that he wouldn't bind Harry to promises he couldn't keep. But he would do this thing, to show Juniper that he was opposed immediately and fervently and by people who believed in the same things he did.

_Although Tickling Hexes would still be more satisfying._

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

Snape was amused.

He knew he could not show it. No one would understand. He had to sit in silence after everyone else had departed the Great Hall, except for Flitwick and Hagrid, and eat his meal, and try to keep his laughter from appearing on his face.

He had wondered yesterday, when Harry told him about the letters Madam Tonks had had him write, whether it was possible that Harry truly could take the leadership of wizarding Britain from the Acting Minister. So long as he remained in power, it might be a beautiful dream, and certainly some Ministries would listen to Harry because of his magic and the prophecy, but Snape doubted the depth of their commitment.

Now, Juniper had carefully removed any possible crown he might have worn and all but laid it at Harry's feet.

_The fool. Has he not studied any trends in wizarding communities in Europe for the last five hundred years?_

There was no country entirely without Dark wizards, though in some they were more prominent than others. In some cases, they controlled the Ministries; in some cases, they competed for the power with Light wizards, as equals; in other cases, they had formed solid voting blocks or actual political parties and insured they kept their voices heard. Even Britain had been more like that fifty years ago. What had truly changed things for them was Dumbledore's defeat of Grindelwald, which had lifted him into a position of power as a Light Lord and increased the antipathy of Light wizards towards Dark ones. The discovery of Dark wizards sworn to Grindelwald's Lightning Guard among prominent members of the Wizengamot did not help. And then Voldemort's First War had exacerbated things, making people come to equate Dark magic with evil and believe that wizards of that allegiance could not be trusted.

The insane dominance of the Light in Britain was a recent historical development, not a natural thing.

_Oh, tides are changing, _Snape thought, lifting the paper and staring at the photograph of the Acting Minister, whose hair blew in the wind around a calm, regal face. _Not in the way that you anticipated, Juniper, but the tides are changing at last._

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry sat back and considered the first stack of letters with a weary eye. He was sending them to the governments that Andromeda had already had him contact (and how strange did that sound, to say that he was writing to Ministries around the world as if he had a right to do so?) He'd used the translation spells on them, since he thought a Minister would appreciate receiving a letter in his native language more than in Latin. Owen, who knew German and Russian, was checking those letters for him. Harry wondered if they had time to check the others.

_Probably not._ It was important that the letters go out as soon as possible. There might be a version of panic in the wider wizarding community if Juniper's news was uncomplemented by some sort of remark from Harry—or, at the very best, scorn, and belief that no one in the Isles knew what to do. Harry wanted to show them that he was, partially, in control of what had happened, or willing to assume control.

He grimaced over the foul slickness those words left in his mind, then turned sharply as he caught sight of a movement under the library tables. The next moment, Argutus had flowed up and was coiled around Harry's arms and throat, hissing urgently.

"_Something is happening in my scales. Look, look, look!_"

Harry frowned and picked up a segment of the Omen snake's body, twisting it until he could see the milky scales and the reflections they bore. The gray-black shapes moving in swift flight through them were familiar—the magical constructs of owls that delivered the _Vox Populi_—but the place they approached was not. At last Harry saw a glimpse of red, and of graffiti, and realized with a start that they were gliding through the dirty alley outside the Ministry's main entrance and settling into the disused telephone box that would become a lift.

"What in the world is Hornblower doing?" he murmured.

The lift descended as he watched in mystified silence, and opened up again once it reached the Ministry's Atrium. The owls spread their wings, moving fast. Harry expected them to divide once they started towards the offices of the various people who read the _Populi_, but they didn't. Instead, they traveled in one concentrated, feathery mass towards the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, or at least the upper level, where the Minister's office was located.

Perhaps because Harry was interested in it, the scene sharpened, until he could see the inside of the Minister's office completely. Harry saw Juniper look up from his desk, and had to stifle a growl of frustration. _Idiotic old man. He has to make my life as hard as he can, and I swear he enjoys it—_

He certainly did not enjoy what happened next, however.

Every single owl banked past the desk and the Acting Minister, and lifted its tail. A mass of white bird-shit dropped out of each with a plop Harry could almost hear, sometimes landing on the paperwork, sometimes on the Acting Minister's hair and ears.

After that first moment, Juniper began a mad scramble to save his parchments, but it was a losing battle. Every time he managed to gather one sheaf of paper to him, an owl would shit on his head, which caused him to lift an arm, which enabled the next to dart in and do the same thing over a fledgling law or edict. By the time the owls all swirled together and dissipated into the air, there wasn't an inch of the Acting Minister's desk and robes that wasn't white, gray, green, brown, or some mixture of both.

The vision faded. Harry began to laugh. Argutus lifted his head and touched his tongue anxiously to Harry's cheek. "_It was not a bad vision, then?"_

"No. A very good one." Harry stroked the Omen snake's head. "You've brought me some excellent news, just what I needed to cheer me up." He supposed, in hindsight, that it wasn't so unexpected. Hornblower was a professional rebel. He changed sides constantly, but he would always be with the one he perceived as the underdog of the moment, unfairly represented. The Ministry had passed a law that he would see as targeting Dark wizards. It wasn't a surprise that he'd decided to make an example of them in his own inimitable way.

"_Good_," said Argutus sleepily, and dropped his head to Harry's shoulder. "_Everyone smelled far too serious._"

Harry stroked him one more time, then turned to Draco. "You can provide me with a list of Dark families who aren't among my allies right now, can't you?" he asked.

"Of course," said Draco, with a little bow. "If you tell me what cheered you up so much that you laughed that hard."

Harry told him. By the end, Draco had snickered hard enough to twist his face, and even Owen, glancing up from the letter to the Minister of Germany, was smiling.

"I'll tell the Dark families they'll have sanctuary," Harry murmured. He felt more relaxed now, and not solely because of Argutus's vision, though that had helped a great deal. He was getting used to the idea that Britain had a bad Acting Minister right now, and he would have to fight Voldemort with his allies instead of beside Juniper. Really, it was no more than he had suspected after Juniper abducted Snape, Peter, and Regulus. "In return for support from those who feel competent to fight."

_I am not going to let this edict tear Britain apart. We have to fight, and fight we shall._

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Owen Rosier-Henlin thought he was ready.

Of course, there would be obvious difficulties in being sworn companion to a Lord-level wizard who had just made himself the sole viable source of opposition to a Dark Lord in the British Isles. There would be many more people trying to kill him, for example. There would be people asking him for things that Harry simply couldn't give, like absolute safety, and which he would drive himself mad trying to provide. There would be more times when Owen would need to be suddenly on the defensive, and less time to spend with his own family.

Owen found he did not care.

This was what he had had in mind when he asked to become a sworn companion, actually: this kind of intense uncertainty and danger. Other than the Midsummer battle, there had been few times like that for him in Harry's service. Harry had managed the rebellion from a distance, and during the jailbreak in the Ministry, other people had helped him more than Owen had.

Now things had changed again. And while Owen could not be as solid an emotional support for Harry—his Lord, essentially, though he kept that thought carefully in the privacy of his mind—as Draco or Snape or his brother could, he could offer a slight emotional distance and a clear head where the rest of them might be caught up in arguing about Harry's safety. And he had special knowledge of Durmstrang and connections he had forged with other European wizarding families during his years there, since Durmstrang had served several countries. That would be important as this war became international, he knew.

Harry might not yet have the scope of vision to see what he would become, though his commitment to it could not be denied.

That was all right. Owen would be his Lord's strong right hand and advisor as necessary.

He was excited.

SSSSSSSSS

Harry sighed. It had been a full day, and his hand hurt from writing all those letters. But he knew he couldn't sleep yet, even if he went to their bedroom with Draco and lay down in his arms. He was simply too high-strung, both from what he'd done and from calling on his allies with the phoenix song spell to hear what they had to say about the general state of things elsewhere in the British Isles.

Ignifer had told him that the news had hit St. Mungo's like a Kneazle hitting a flock of pigeons. Most of the Healers were worrying over whether certain specialized spells would be declared Dark Arts, and what they would do if that should happen. She intended to move Honoria to Hogwarts as soon as possible, since now she was convinced the Healers could do nothing more for her partner.

Neville had told Harry that his grandmother was furious, and had spent most of the day Flooing back and forth from her allies' houses, swearing that the Acting Minister would not be the only image of Light that the wider world took away from this conflict. She had also sent a Howler to Juniper to give him a piece of her mind, and a piece of Augusta Longbottom's mind, as Harry could imagine from meeting her, was a formidable piece indeed.

He'd contacted Skeeter, but the reporter was hidden somewhere in her beetle Animagus form and couldn't talk. Harry fully understood, and expected an informative article at some point tomorrow.

The Opallines were fiercely delighted, because Paton had finally given Calibrid permission to reveal their presence to Muggles on the Isle of Man itself. He didn't think that the Ministry's laws were worth obeying any more, and that apparently now included the International Statute of Secrecy. Harry had spent a few minutes arguing with Calibrid, but couldn't talk her out of it.

Remus reported no vampire activity in London, but some suspicious movement near flats owned by wizards in the wider area. He thought Voldemort was trying to recruit more Death Eaters. Harry had to accept that that wasn't unlikely. He wondered how many people would actually join him, though.

The Weasley twins had told Harry somberly that the battle lines appeared to have been drawn straight down the middle of Diagon Alley. Five Light wizard-Dark wizard duels had happened already, one right in front of their shop, with Aurors coming to drag away any participants who had used Dark Arts.

And there were more reports, so many that Harry had finally had to admit that he needed help to coordinate all the different aspects of this situation and create working maps and strategies. He dearly wished for Adalrico on his side again, and not just for the obvious reasons. The man had been good with general strategy, though not magically powerful enough to lead many attacks himself.

All of this had left him far too keyed up to sleep, and so he was on top of the Astronomy Tower again, pacing back and forth. Owen and Draco had come with him, while Bill and Charlie guarded the steps below.

Harry could understand why his sworn companions were willing to skip sleep to be with him, but he couldn't understand Draco's presence. He'd even gently encouraged him to go get some rest, since he knew how grumpy Draco got when he didn't sleep enough. That had only won him a flat look, though, so at last Harry gave in and allowed Draco to watch him while he paced.

The sound of wings above him startled him, and he stared into the sky. Owen was already on his feet, wand out, and Bill and Charlie charged up the stairs. Harry glanced at Charlie, who had paused next to him. "Dragons?" he asked.

"The sound's too small, except for a Peruvian Vipertooth," said Charlie, shaking his head. "And the permission battle you'd have to go through to get one of those into the country—"

Abruptly, the clouds overhead parted, and Harry's mouth fell open as he watched a wave of glittering horses dip into sight, laboring along on wide, feathered wings. Each bore a rider. At first, Harry thought they were Granians, so fast did they move, and he prepared his magic; enemies of his had ridden the gray flying horses before. When they caught and flashed the starlight back, though, he saw they were made of metal, and he knew who they must have come from.

_Gloryflower._

The flock halted a distance from the Tower and wheeled around it, close enough to let Harry see that they were made of silver, with manes and tails of what looked like braided pearls. The leader flew steadily towards him. Harry ignored his companions' raised wands, and lifted his hand.

"Hello, Mrs. Gloryflower," he said.

"Do call me Laura, Harry." Laura Gloryflower pulled her horse up to land on the battlement of the Tower, by means of a pair of leather reins that stuck out from the ends of a golden bridle molded to the head. The horse tossed its neck and snorted. Harry eyed it admiringly. Its eyes were sapphires, and it was even more lifelike than the golden horses and the unicorns Laura had sent into the battle last year. "This is a series of artificial animals we've just perfected, and we're going to fight beside you." She gave him a small, strong smile. "Since, after all, the Acting Minister does make it seem as if the Light wizards should turn their backs on you."

Harry stretched out a hand and gently touched the winged horse under the chin. It sniffed at him, and he felt a huff of cold air from its nostrils. It was the magic that powered the horse, but it felt convincingly like breath. "Thank you," he said. "Would you be adverse to putting on a—bit of a show for me tomorrow morning?"

Laura's smile widened like sunrise across her face. "Tell us."

SSSSSSSSSSSS

"No," Indigena said aloud.

She examined the paper for a moment, then cast a spell on it that would reveal any glamours anyone had added. Surely some mischievous child in this small wizarding village where she came, heavily disguised, to fetch food and learn the news had charmed the papers to look as if the Acting Minister had really banned Dark Arts.

There was no glamour. The papers stayed the same.

Indigena hissed between her teeth and shook her head sadly. Her Lord would welcome the news, of course, and it was an addition to the chaos growing throughout the Isles. It might even add to their recruitment efforts. Some wizards had a commitment to practicing the Dark Arts that went beyond occasional use of some dodgy defensive magic or charms and made it a lifestyle. There were even a few members of her own family Indigena thought might join them over this.

But it was a shame that Harry had to deal with this kind of thing.

_It is also a shame that he would not accept my Lord's offer, _Indigena thought, as she tucked the paper under her arm and prepared to Apparate. _Then he could be in a place where he would not have to deal with such stupidity daily. And he would certainly not be compelled to consider himself a part of that world, and the people who did this equals, and treat with them as such._

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

"Sir? You should see this."

Erasmus sighed and followed the somber young Auror who had come in to give him the message. After the debacle of yesterday, when more than fifty magical owls had deposited feces on his desk, he did not like to imagine what other "spectacle" he needed to watch, but it was better to deal with it.

_And you expected opposition, _he reminded to himself as he halted in front of one of the enchanted windows of the Ministry. _Perhaps not quite so deep or quite so immediate, but you knew that most wizards in Britain were not up to the standards that you are promoting._

He looked out the window. It gave onto a perfectly presentable scene of Muggle London in the morning, the Thames running slug-silver between its banks, Muggle carriages passing back and forth over it and beside it.

And above them all drifted a series of what he at first took for clouds, but realized a moment later was a string of silver flying horses.

Erasmus stared, his heart in his throat. It was an amazing display of the beauty and the power of the Light. The horses had been made to flash and give back the sunlight multiplied—not because they had to, or because it was a requirement of their flight, but solely because their makers loved the sun and had wanted it that way. They tumbled around each other, wings spread wide, and danced like courting swans. Sometimes a pair flew so close together that their sides scraped, and their wings overlapped each other like blankets. Silver bells attached to their tails rang and called across the miles, creating a music that lifted Erasmus's heart even as it infuriated him. Once, such displays had been common over Britain—once, when Light wizards had been stronger and nobler of heart than they were now.

And they were riding in full sight of Muggles.

"Send the Obliviators to stand along their route," he told the young Auror, without taking his eyes from the horses. _Gloryflower work. I would know it anywhere. _"And track them from their end to the beginning. I want to make sure every Muggle who sees them doesn't remember them. And cast a widespread _Fumo_, too. We can make the Muggles think they're clouds."

"Sir."

As her footsteps hastened away, Erasmus leaned forward and stared at the horses until his eyes ached. A rich, deep sadness had taken hold of him, and soothed away even the headache that it would be to make sure that Muggles remembered nothing of this, or at best a series of tumbling early morning clouds. At least the Gloryflowers had ventured out before many of London's residents were awake, while dawn still streaked the sky.

He was sad that he could not have the Gloryflowers as allies. So beautiful, and they had chosen the wrong side.

_But this is what I am fighting to preserve: their right to have magic like this, even if they turn against me for it. In the end, they shall owe their survival to me. And I like the thought of leaving a legacy so fair in the world._


	17. A War of Lords and Ladies

Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter!

**Chapter Twelve: A War of Lords and Ladies**

Harry bit his lip as he saw the owls flying towards him the next morning. There were at least twenty of them, and he had no way of telling if the letters they bore were answers to the ones he had sent, offers of alliance, or perhaps traps containing Portkeys, like the ones holding the wooden Snitch and broom that Rosier had sent to lure Connor away. The thought of sorting through them all with spells before he'd even eaten his breakfast wearied him. Of course, that could have to do with the fact that he'd again been awake late the night before, writing yet more letters and making firecalls.

_At least I know the Howlers from the rest, _he thought, and concentrated on the red, smoking envelopes. Picturing what he wanted, he clapped his hands sharply. The owls who carried the Howlers abruptly pitched off course, hooting in shock as a pair of iron jaws appeared near their legs and ate the parchment and envelopes without touching their feet. That done, the jaws vanished. The owls wheeled around in confusion for a few more moments, then turned and headed tamely back out the windows of the Great Hall.

Someone laughed across from him. Harry looked up at Snape for the moment before a storm of owls came between them, trying to figure out ways to land as close to him as possible.

"What?" he asked, as he floated the first letter off the biggest owl—no owl at all, actually, but a gyrfalcon. He knew that would be from one of the Light families, probably Griffinsnest. It had once been tradition to use the huge, proud birds in place of owls, but as fewer people now knew how to tame them, most families didn't keep them any longer.

"A year ago, you would not have done that." Snape sipped at his water, the only liquid he seemed to drink in the mornings, his dark eyes fastened on Harry. "You would have thought it your duty to listen to the Howlers and figure out what objections the people sending them could possibly have against you."

"I'm tired," Harry muttered, dodging the implied criticism, and collected the rest of the letters with a scrape of his magic. The owls then all hooted in chorus, seeming to think that if he had taken their letters all at once, he should pay them all at once. Harry sighed, rolled his eyes, and Summoned some of the Knuts he had lying on his bedroom table to give owls who came into the Slytherin common room. When the glittering coins settled into their pouches, the owls took off and shot towards the windows again. In a moment, only feathers settling with a slow swirl into the marmalade, and the strong smell of dust, revealed they had ever been there.

"Is every morning going to be like this?" Draco asked from beside him. He sounded disgruntled. Harry glanced at him with some sympathy, but not much. Draco had insisted on staying up with him again last night. He _knew_ that his temper and his control over his emotions suffered when he did that.

"Until I stop writing to people and can teach them the phoenix song spell, yes, I think so," said Harry calmly, and began feeling his way through his post, a Shield Charm up in front of him to deflect any hexes from people who were feeling too subtle to send Howlers.

There was one on the letter the gyrfalcon had carried, which was indeed from Griffinsnest, and scolded him for not making a public announcement that he intended to follow the Minister's edict and refrain from using Dark Arts. There were a few others like that, too, mostly from pureblood families or prominent Muggleborns and halfbloods proudly denying that they would ever ally with him. But a few others asked for safety in one of the sanctuaries, and others offered their skills to help in the war—including a Healer, whose letter Harry carefully put aside—and Tybalt Starrise had written, saying his brother's trial was almost settled and he'd be able to pay attention to other things soon.

There was also one that didn't—well, it puzzled him, and yet it didn't. Harry knew exactly who it came from; his signature was bold at the bottom of the letter. But it seemed like he shouldn't be writing to Harry, and especially that he shouldn't ask the question he should in the letter. He was supposed to be too confident for that.

_July 5th, 1997_

_Harry:_

_Do you think the Light will be triumphant?_

_Cupressus Apollonis._

Harry cast a detection charm on the parchment, to tell him if someone else had concealed his handwriting with what could look like Apollonis's. The detection charm came back blank, and clean. Of course, Harry had only the faintest memory of what Cupressus's handwriting looked like, so it could still be someone else using this as a fake name.

There was someone sitting at the table who should know exactly what Cupressus's handwriting looked like, though.

"Ignifer?" he called, and floated the letter towards her when she looked up from a low-voiced conversation with Honoria.

Ignifer's eyebrows lifted as she read the letter, and her body grew still and tense. Then she gave Harry a single nod. "That's his hand," she said. She turned back to Honoria as if she wanted to forget the parchment, and probably by extension her father, existed.

Perplexed, Harry drew the letter back and stared at it, then cast several other detection spells, this time ones that would reveal the presence of Tracking Charms or other devices on the letter. Perhaps it was meant to spy for Cupressus, who had counted on shock persuading Harry to keep instead of shred it.

In the end, it hung there in the air, an innocent letter, and Harry had to accept that it was nothing more than parchment and ink.

That did not mean he was going to write back. Any statement could be taken and reported to the newspapers, his words twisted to make it seem he was against the Light. He had not said that, and he never would. He welcomed Light wizards if they did not try to dominate others.

_Rather like Cupressus dominated his daughter. He does not deserve an answer._

Harry ripped his hands apart. The letter shredded into a tiny flurry of paper snowflakes, which tried to settle in his cornflakes. Harry set them on fire instead, and then reached for the rest of the post.

Draco knocked him on the back of the head. Harry jumped and glared at him indignantly, wondering if this was another side-effect of Draco's short temper this morning.

"Eat your breakfast," Draco muttered. "You'll have time to deal with the post later. It's not as though it's going anywhere. And you'll have time to use your magic later, too." He turned back to his own food.

Harry stared at him a moment, noting the pink tinge to his cheeks. He knew his use of magic sometimes aroused Draco, but he'd never thought it would happen at the breakfast table. Draco must be feeling rather hard up.

_Maybe I can do something about that later. _Harry frowned at the mountain of post again as he picked up his spoon. _If I ever have any free time._

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

"No safehouse is more secure than another, at this point," Harry said, trying his best to keep his temper. He understood that Snape's questions were meant to help him, really he did, but having five of them asked in a row that were only slightly reworded variations of the same thing wasn't helpful. "We don't know what part of England Voldemort plans to attack next. If he keeps to the same pattern, the attacks will be widely-scattered, and the only thing that joins them will be that they're against people important to me. We don't know where his lair is, so if one safehouse is closer to it than another is, we won't _know_ that. We can only guess. And to say that a safehouse in Ireland is more dangerous than the others is ridiculous. All of them will have powerful wards that Thomas is making immune to those ward-draining stones, guards trained in defensive magic, and a set of Portkeys designed to take the inhabitants to safety immediately in the event of a raid."

Snape drew back from the map of the safehouses spread on the table in his office and gave Harry a slow smile. Harry blinked. "What?" he snapped, rattled.

"I wanted to make sure that you knew these things," Snape said. He really was infuriatingly calm. "I did not know if you did." He stood and moved across the room to the fireplace, leaving Harry to stare at his back. "Tea?"

"Not brewed by a house elf, thank you." Harry rubbed his face with his left hand, feeling the cool of the silver emblem in the center against his skin, and told himself that he loved Snape, he really did, and killing him would be counterproductive.

"You realize that you may need to give that up soon," Snape remarked, even as he Summoned a teacup out of a cupboard on the wall and cast a Cleaning Charm on it, leaving Harry to choose what he wanted to Transfigure into the tea. Harry was glad for the Cleaning Charm, at least; Merlin knew what Potions ingredients the cup had once held. "The food that comes in by owl is too vulnerable to attack, and the money that you've paid to keep the shop owners quiet about where and to whom they send the food may not be enough to stand against the temptation of greater money. Or torture, for that matter."

"I'll do what I have to," said Harry, concentrating on the vial of water he'd scooped up from the desk. Snape gave him a mild glare, as it would have gone into a potion, but Harry ignored him. It was easy to acquire water, after all, and easy to Transfigure it into tea. "Conjuring or Transfiguration will work if bringing food in by owl won't."

"You are stubborn," Snape said quietly. He gave his order to the house elf's voice that came through the flames and stood. "There may come a day when you can't fight this war or be safe without giving up some of your principles."

"It's already come," said Harry, and floated his own teacup towards himself, taking a sip. It wasn't as good as tea actually brewed and not conjured, but it would do. "The day I had to use Legilimency against Voldemort."

Snape opened his mouth, looking irritated, but Harry jerked his head up before he could say anything. Someone powerful had come through Hogwarts's wards, which should have been impossible, given the way McGonagall had tightened them. Harry's first thought was that Voldemort had come with a ward-eating stone and some way to drain the magic into himself without instantly losing it again.

A moment later, though, he recognized the feel of the magic, and relaxed. It was Jing-Xi, the Chinese Light Lady who had taught him about the etiquette of Lords and Ladies in better days. Harry would have to refuse a lesson if she had come about that, and hope it was not another responsibility that she'd want to lay at his feet. But he could visit her.

"Excuse me, sir," he said, and slipped out of the room, bearing his teacup with him, because he could. It didn't take him long to find the room that Jing-Xi had entered, the one she usually arrived in; the magic led him like a beacon. He laid his hand on the door, knocked once, and heard her bid him enter.

When he came in, she stood by the window, her long black hair waving ceaselessly about her in the enchantment that made it look like seaweed moving underwater. Colored ripples of light danced around her, eddying, and the window had transformed into a slowly worked series of amber roses. As Harry watched, yet another edge of the stone became amber.

Jing-Xi turned towards him with a faint smile. "Harry," she said. "I need your permission to invite a friend of mine into Britain."

That pulled Harry up short, and he frowned as he tried to work out who this friend was, why Jing-Xi would want to invite him, and why she would need his permission. Luckily, the lessons she'd spent some time drilling into him came back.

"This friend is a Lord?" he asked warily. It was courtesy for wizards and witches that powerful to ask permission before they entered a wizarding community that housed another Lord or Lady.

"Lady," Jing-Xi corrected him. "I told you about her once before. Kanerva Stormgale, the Dark Lady of Finland—though she was not born there, that was simply where she ended up, so the terminology 'Lady of Finland' is sometimes argued over. Regardless, she is currently awaiting my permission, and your invitation, to appear."

"You also mentioned she was mad," Harry said. "And that I'd faced her power before, or part of it, when the Dark attacked at Midwinter."

Jing-Xi nodded, looking at him as if she didn't see why that would matter.

"I want some assurance that she won't simply attack me or mine the moment she appears," Harry clarified.

"I cannot _entirely_ promise that," Jing-Xi admitted. "But she wants to help you, Harry, because I do. Events have been moving so fast in Britain that I do not think you can face them alone. And I have heard rumors of a vampire hive queen. You cannot defeat her alone, either."

"And an insane ally is worse than no ally." Harry folded his arms and met her stare for stare. "I understand that you're trying to help, Jing-Xi, but it seems to me that that's forbidden both by the Lords' Pact and by common sense."

"For the Pact, I intend to speak to the others, and try to convince them that this situation is different," said Jing-Xi. She flung back her head, and Harry saw a resonant determination in her eyes he hadn't encountered before. "As for Kanerva—meet her, Harry. I promise that if she is a threat to Britain, I will face her myself. I do not truly think she will be. She is my friend, and she has never yet turned against that."

Harry reluctantly weighed the help that two Ladies, one Light and one Dark, might provide against the vampire hive queen and maybe even against Voldemort himself, versus the danger of an all-powerful Evan Rosier. Then he sighed. Kanerva could not be as mad as Rosier, or she would not have waited for permission to come to Britain. At the very least, she must be sane enough to obey the protocols of the Pact. The other Lords and Ladies would probably have destroyed her otherwise.

"I give her permission, then," he said.

Jing-Xi lifted one hand and gave a shrill whistle which quickly rose beyond Harry's hearing. He winced and clapped his hands to his ears; it felt as if the notes were still ringing in the center of his eardrums, and he hoped they wouldn't make him bleed before Jing-Xi was done.

The air in the room began to move, turning like a ponderous wheel around the center where Harry stood. Then it built quickly to a roaring hurricane, and Harry had to slam strength into his muscles with his magic to keep from being blown off his feet. He heard a howl, which seemed to descend from the same high pitch into which Jing-Xi's whistle had risen and then attain a depth that shook Hogwarts and his bones.

When he could see again, a woman stood next to him, close enough that Harry had to fight not to back off. She leaned forward even more and stared at him. Her skin was the dead-bone color of the Grey Lady, the Ravenclaw ghost, and her hair was black and—trailed away from her head into nothingness. In fact, Harry saw, she appeared to be missing several edges of her body, including the tips of her fingers and boots and the hem of her robe, where they blurred and simply vanished into the air. He supposed that someone apparently able to travel by the wind would have a natural union with the medium the wind traveled through.

Her eyes were blue, and quite the coldest and quietest eyes he had ever seen in his life. They stared, and stared, and stared. Harry looked back until his eyes watered. Kanerva never blinked.

"No need for a staring contest," Jing-Xi said softly, in a voice Harry thought was amused, though he couldn't look away from Kanerva to be sure. That would be a show of weakness. "This is the Dark Lady Stormgale. And Kanerva, you've heard me speak of Harry, the _vates_, the undeclared."

"He should Declare," said Kanerva, her voice cold and sharp, like snapping ice in winter. "He would be Dark, and perhaps he would hasten the destruction of the world."

Harry decided immediately that he probably wasn't going to like her, and not only because she refused to get out of his personal space. He cast Jing-Xi a glance now, and she gave him another subtle nod of reassurance.

"I use Light and Dark magic equally, as a matter of fact," he told Kanerva. "I'm not sure why you say I would be Dark, Lady."

She remained silent for a moment, only cocking her head to the side, like an owl. Then Harry felt the oddest sensation, as if a wind had begun by ruffling his hair and had passed inside his skull on its journey.

"You have darkness inside you," she said, and her voice had warmed and grown friendlier. "You're afraid of it, but you don't need to be. When one goes to the Dark, then one ceases to care about such petty matters as the terror of others. I have never been afraid since I Declared." She ran her hands down her sides boastfully.

_She saw into my head._ Harry was worried for a moment, since he was sure she hadn't performed Legilimency or got through his Occlumency barriers, but a thick wind swirled across his sight like a swathe of darkness, and he thought he knew how she'd done it. _Sent a wind into my mind, to see that dark place. I always thought Legilimency felt like a wind. I suppose she's an expert at her own kind of mind-reading, and approached it from the other side, as a wind that works like a thought._

"It's true that I have some darkness," said Harry, careful to keep his voice steady. "But I prefer not to let it out."

Kanerva blinked for the first time. "Why?" she asked.

"He's the balance, Kanerva, I told you," Jing-Xi intervened. For the first time, the Dark Lady turned her head to look at her friend, and Harry had the time to study her magic. She was less strong than Jing-Xi, which at least lent some credence to the fact that Jing-Xi could force her back and out of Britain if something happened. She was slightly stronger than he was himself, Harry thought, though her power was in constant, cold motion, and it was hard to be sure. "That's why I think the Pact might actually agree to let us help him. There has _never_ been a situation like this before, with someone of Lord-level power who simply refuses to Declare, and who has managed to hold off on using compulsion for such a long time."

"But he could use compulsion, and it wouldn't destroy him," said Kanerva.

"I don't want to," Harry said.

Kanerva leaned near again, so close that Harry could feel her breath on his cheeks, cold like a Gloryflower horse's. She stared into his eyes some more, then tilted her head either way and breathed across his ears. The wind that blew back to her probably carried some messages about the state of his earlobes, or from the scent of his skin, that Harry couldn't even imagine.

"You don't want to," she said. "The will of someone so powerful and Dark must be respected. But I do not understand it. I will remain here. Perhaps I will understand." She turned to Jing-Xi, her winds pacing restlessly around her, forming what looked like a visible hurricane again, with her in the eye. "You wish me to call upon the others, Jing-Xi?"

Jing-Xi nodded. "It's time," she said quietly. "We've ignored the situation in Britain long enough. Too many things are different. Harry is the only Lord-level wizard who's come into his powers this young, the only one who's the heir of another of us, and certainly the only one who's killed two of his own kind in rapid succession. The others are calling you Lord-slayer," she added over her shoulder to Harry. "And now we know that Voldemort will not remain in Britain for long, so the Pact cannot remain a policy of strict non-interference. Sooner or later he will cross into your territory, Kanerva, or into Monika's, and we would have the war the others are so anxious to avoid. If we can concentrate on Britain now and contain the threat, we can avoid that."

"I am not making my winds bear all that," said Kanerva, and raised her arms above her head. "I will summon them. It will be enough."

"What is she doing?" Harry whispered, as he watched the winds fountain around Kanerva's head, taking on the forms of scraps of cloth. He had never seen magic like this, but then, he had never made the intensive study of magic of the air that Kanerva seemed to have done. "Will she actually pull the others here?"

Jing-Xi shook her head. "She will—watch," she breathed suddenly, and Harry looked up to see a whirlwind dancing to one side of the room. It paused, then crackled out like a lightning bolt.

Harry found that he could follow its path with his eyes, long after it should have passed out beyond the walls of Hogwarts, long after it should even have left the British Isles. It seemed to draw his sight along with it, and it sped over the Channel, over the Pyrenees, over tall and glistening mountains he knew must be the Alps, and then struck and landed on what looked like the most heavily warded farmhouse Harry had ever seen, in the middle of a thick forest of grim trees. Near the house grazed what looked like ordinary sheep, at least until they looked up, and Harry shuddered slightly to realize they had multiple heads and tentacles in a glistening collar around their necks. On the slope in front of the house lay a dark thing with no visible head or legs, laboring to birth something else, and beside it sat a woman who looked up as if hearing a distant call. Harry could feel the power crackling around her even from this distance and through Kanerva's wind, strong, musky-smelling magic that he knew must be oriented towards breeding and reproduction. The wind framed her face as a picture in the air, and then blew on, reaching towards others.

"The Dark Lady Monika, of Austria," Jing-Xi whispered. "She is the one after Voldemort whom you must be most wary of. I told you about her once. She breeds creatures together for her specialty in magic, and she researches webs, and she does not like the way your very existence melts them."

Harry shuddered slightly, and, his mind full of Monika, missed the next few Lords and Ladies Kanerva summoned, though he knew her winds were traveling east across Europe and Asia, calling them. When he looked up again, a man with a confusing flicker of glamours around him, now a brown face and now a black one and now the head of a unicorn, was staring inquiringly into the air.

"That's Brewer, as the English translation of his name would be, the Light Lord of South Africa," Jing-Xi continued in the same soft voice. "The greatest Potions Master in the world. He won't let anyone see what he really looks like, or tell anyone his real name." She snorted. "I think he is a white man who is ashamed of his race's legacy in that country."

Harry nodded, watching as Brewer's face was framed in the air, and Kanerva's magic traveled on, calling and recruiting, now a Light Lady, now a Dark Lord. For a moment, he caught a glimpse of bright coral and racing waters, and then they vanished. He raised an eyebrow at Jing-Xi.

"There are two brother Lords in Australia, one Light and one Dark, who only care about fighting each other," said Jing-Xi, a faint smile on her face. "They never come to the meetings of the Pact, and so long as they confine their disputes within their own country, the rest of the Pact does not care. Their magic turns Kanerva's winds away whenever she attempts to summon them." She tapped her fingers thoughtfully against her arm. "Even though there are thirty-two of us in the world, therefore, there will be only twenty-nine of us here, including you. The brother Lords never pay attention, and Voldemort is of course not invited."

Harry watched as the wind sped away across the Pacific, now and then touching on islands, and then blazed into a flash of rich, deep sunlight, and immense trees of a kind Harry had never seen before. Their bark was like slightly cool blood. Sitting under one of them was a black woman with hair so dark it sheened blue, apparently meditating. She opened her eyes and nodded to the call of Kanerva's wind, though, and rose calmly to her feet when the storm passed on over her.

"One of my dearest friends." Jing-Xi had a hand extended towards the wind-window, and for a moment the black woman put her hand up to touch it, and suddenly Harry was looking straight into her eyes, not merely a flat image of them. He could feel the magic around her, too, the same as any ordinary witch's on the surface, but sinking so deep underneath that any enemy would find himself bounced from row after row of shields. "Harry, meet Pamela Seaborn, Light Lady of the United States."

"A pleasure to meet you, my Lady," said Harry, and gave the little half-bow that Jing-Xi had taught him, hoping it was correct. It was mostly used only when meeting on neutral ground, not suddenly through a wind-window.

Lady Seaborn smiled slowly, examining him with eyes that Harry was sure saw more than just the surface of his face. _For all I know, since Kanerva uses wind, she might use the water molecules in the air to learn more about me, _Harry thought, staring back.

"He'll do, I suppose," she said. "I see why you wanted to teach him, Jing-Xi. He would require a teacher with much patience."

Harry wasn't sure if he should be insulted or not, but before he could respond, a hiss from the side made him swing around. Kanerva's storm had sprouted yet another window, and into this one strode a woman clad in writhing serpents. She was tall, taller than Jing-Xi, and her dusky face was implacable—a warrior's, Harry thought, or at least someone who had seen much fighting in her life. She hissed back to the serpents, more slowly than Harry would have expected someone with the speaking gift to do, telling them to be quiet.

"You are a Parselmouth?" Harry asked in the same language, trying to fight down his wonder. He had thought he, Voldemort, and Lucius the only living Parselmouths in the world. The Lady glanced up at him as the window firmed and tugged them both nearer across the immense distance, the way that Lady Seaborn's window had.

"I do not use that word," she answered him. "I sink my mind into the minds of animals instead, and learn the language as I would any other." She glanced past him at Jing-Xi, and her face softened as she greeted the other woman in a swift, springing language that Harry didn't know. Jing-Xi came past Harry to clasp her hand in turn, and then smiled at Harry.

"And I need to present, in turn, Coatlicue, the Light Lady of Mexico," she said. She added something in that other language to Coatlicue, who raised an eyebrow and gave a short answer. Jing-Xi flicked her fingers. "That is a translation charm," she said to Harry. "Coatlicue prefers to speak Nahuatl, the language of her ancestors, but of course there is no reason that the two of you should not understand each other."

Harry studied the Lady more closely. "You are Aztec?" he asked.

"Yes," said Coatlicue. "Not all of our people died when the Spaniards came. We took what we could and fled into hiding. We were among the earliest magical peoples in the world to separate ourselves from the Muggles." For a moment, her lips tightened. "And we do not like the notion of emerging without proper precautions." She stroked one of the serpents wound around her, an enormous rattlesnake from the shape of its tail, and frowned at Harry. He felt himself flush.

Kanerva's wind had sped around the world, Harry saw as he glanced up at the moving image again, and now it flashed in across Dover and down towards Scotland. The moment it hit a representation of the room and them, things turned dizzily around. Harry lost sight of the hearth and the window and the walls and the other ordinary furniture of the room. Now they appeared to float in starry space, with the windows through which the other Lords and Ladies looked the only portals onto normal pictures of sunlight and darkness and earth. Harry noticed that each window-border had a symbol carved the length of it; Coatlicue's was a mass of serpents, for example. He wondered what his own looked like. Glancing down, he couldn't see it, since he, Kanerva, and Jing-Xi appeared, to him, to stand on a plug of stone in between the others.

"Explain why you have summoned the Pact, Jing-Xi," said Monika, coming to the edge of her window. Her hands were covered with some thick dark liquid Harry would almost hope was blood, since most of the other things it could be were fouler. "The situation in Britain is that of British Lords to handle, until Voldemort crosses the Channel." Her eyes came to Harry. He thought they were wider and darker than Bellatrix Lestrange's, but hers were coolly sane, and therefore far more terrifying. A dark shroud of magic rose behind her, shutting out the sunlight. "I see no reason this situation is different than any other."

"It is," said Lady Seaborn, leaning against the border of her window, which had the red trees on it. Harry thought they were probably redwoods. "And you know why, Monika." She had a mocking tone in her voice. Harry wondered if the translation charm would send that through, too. "All the things Jing-Xi's been babbling at us for the past months." Here was a smile that Harry thought was probably teasing, given that Jing-Xi had introduced her as a friend. "Young Lord, no Declaration, _vates_, in need of training, Lord-slayer, and now with an Acting Minister who won't be any help to him to boot."

"So?" Monika had a shrug that she could make frightening. "What does that matter? We have seen worse situations in other countries before, in terms of the human suffering of them—" she sneered those words as if they offended her "—and have not helped. The Pact is for non-interference until a _Lord_ crosses boundaries. Not because we feel sorry for the children and the ducklings and the saplings."

"There is one thing I am curious about," Brewer murmured. Even his voice changed from moment to moment, Harry realized. _He must a master of glamours as well as potions. _"Why did young Harry here slay Lord Parkinson and Lord Dumbledore _before_ Lord Riddle? Why do that, when that is his worst enemy?"

Harry could feel the pressure of gazes on him, from brown eyes and blue and gray and some that were no human colors, from light faces and dark. He put up his head proudly. "Voldemort has made Horcruxes," he said. "Six of them altogether. Two have been destroyed, but four are either behind Unassailable Curses so powerful that I cannot get through them at the moment, or hidden. To destroy each one, someone who loves me or wishes to destroy the Horcrux must die."

There was a long silence. Then a Dark Lord whose name Harry hadn't heard said, "No one makes more than _one_ Horcrux. You would become too corrupt."

"What do you think he's like now?" Harry asked, raising his eyebrows.

"And do you have a Horcrux, Alexandre?" Brewer added.

"As if I would tell you," the Dark Lord said, with a sneer of old and practiced contempt. Just as there were friendships in the circle of Lords and Ladies, Harry supposed, there might also be old rivalries.

"I love the concept of those Unassailable Curses," said Monika dreamily. "I should have thought to use them on my webs before this."

Harry frowned at her, utterly unable to help himself.

"You see why this situation in different," Jing-Xi broke in. "I wish to help Harry, and so does Kanerva. Yes, it means interfering in another wizarding community that is not our own, but I have been helping to train Harry, and Kanerva has always been a wanderer at heart. And we have his permission. What say you, Lords and Ladies of the Pact? Is this situation different enough to warrant interference?"

"I wish an answer of my own before I give one," Coatlicue said, leaning forward. "What is your stance on wizard-Muggle separations, _vates_?" Harry had the feeling that she'd barely stopped herself from calling him a Lord.

Harry met her eyes and answered honestly. "I have allies who are splitting the barrier, such as werewolf packs who are biting those Muggles who ask and a Light Old Blood family who is trying to spread knowledge of magic across Europe, though they know the Obliviators and the various security precautions in place will make the revelation a slow one. I know very little about the Muggle world. On the one hand, I would like to see those barriers down as I would like to see most barriers down; they encourage prejudice in British wizards, and Merlin knows I have enough to deal with regarding that. On the other hand, I don't know what the Muggles' reaction will be, for the most part. But Voldemort is intent on attacking Muggles. I will have to deal with at least the British government's reaction to that."

Coatlicue narrowed her eyes at him in silence, while the serpents slid up and down and curled around her neck. Then she glanced around at the windows. "My Lords, my Ladies," she said. "I propose a compromise. Let Lady Jing-Xi and Lady Stormgale remain in Britain and help the _vates_ with defenses against Lord Riddle's attacks and perhaps the destruction of the Horcruxes, should he manage to find them. They _cannot_ help in the war otherwise, and they may not aid in his _vates_ work or whatever revelations he makes to Muggles. Is this acceptable?"

"Of course not," said Monika. "The Pact has always been against such interference. Why should we make an exception merely because of Horcruxes? Or merely for defensive magic?"

"Why should we allow someone else to hide behind the principles of the Pact merely to make life difficult for another of us?" Lady Seaborn remarked, as if into the air. Then she turned around and gave Monika a heavy smile. "Oh, of course, it is different when one's a Dark Lady and worried about all of one's precious webs being undone by the _vates._"

"There are few of my children breeding yet in California," Monika said softly. "They could come there."

"There are few redwoods in Austria, either," said Lady Seaborn. Her hair stirred like ocean waves. "That does not mean they could not cross the ocean."

"We can settle this, I think," said Brewer solemnly.

"He always does that," Jing-Xi whispered to Harry. "He _hates_ conflict."

Brewer's shoulders tensed as if he had heard her, but he didn't look towards her. "We can settle this," he repeated. "I think She Who Wears a Skirt of Serpents has made the best compromise, balancing between the uniqueness of this situation and the principles we have always believed in. I will support it. What say the rest of you?"

A few other Light Lords and Light Ladies nodded immediate agreement. The Dark Lord Alexandre snorted. Harry wondered if he knew how to make any other sound. He was as haughty as Lucius Malfoy, from the look of his face. "And so the Light runs in a pack," he said.

"Supporting something just because of your allegiance should not happen," Coatlicue said firmly. "You know that, Alexandre. This is supposed to be about something larger than all of us. Like it or not, ours is the power that enfolds the world, and we must mark what we do." She glanced keenly at Harry. "You will do your best to find the Horcruxes and destroy Voldemort?"

"With three prophecies running around me, I should think so," Harry muttered.

Coatlicue gave him a small smile. "I know that prophecies are not toys," she said, and her eyes shone for a moment with what Harry thought was the shadow of grief. Then she glanced back at the other Lords and Ladies. "My compromise is the best," she said. "As the Lord Brewer suggests, it will preserve our own neutrality while doing its best to exempt us from future war."

A few of the others made soft noises of agreement then. Jing-Xi stepped forward. "I will make one more appeal for free reign to fight at Harry's side," she said. "Offensively as well as defensively. I believe he is worth it."

Harry gave her a sidelong look. He hadn't expected such support, and he wondered what had made Jing-Xi give it.

"You can't have that," said Coatlicue. "I love you, Jing-Xi, but I won't start setting dangerous precedents that could affect my own people negatively, and endorsing our young _vates_ completely would do that."

Jing-Xi bowed her head. "Then I accept this compromise."

Most of the other Lords and Ladies went along with it, then, until the only one left was Monika, standing with her arms stubbornly folded and a monumental glare locked on Harry.

"He is the Lord-slayer," she said. "Are we going to allow him to pick us off until none of us are left?"

"I don't _want_ power," said Harry, willing his voice to carry the truth. He wasn't sure how well it would work across that immense distance, through a translation charm, and without Veritaserum, but he would try his best. He sent magic flowing into his words, making them hew to simple clarity. "I've never wanted it. I would have been happier not being Lord-level, and that I am is an accident. I've only killed two Dark Lords, and will slay a third, because of intertwined prophecies. That's all."

Monika stared at him for a moment longer, then sniffed and waved a hand, which sent a large dollop of birthing fluid flying away from it. "Very well, then. I agree to this ridiculous compromise. Simply remember, _vates_, that I have bred my creatures, and consider them my children. I do not intend to let them go free." She turned away from the window.

Kanerva's winds began to dissipate, releasing the faces of the Lords and Ladies one by one. Alexandre gave Harry a final sneer, and he thought Brewer murmured a blessing. Lady Seaborn leaned over her windowsill and clasped his hand almost hard enough to crush it, pairing the clasp with a fierce smile.

"You will have to visit me someday when all this is done," she said. "I have been trying to awaken my redwoods from the ancient webs a Dark Lord put on them a century ago. They can speak and be sentient and even defend their territory if the web is broken. I look forward to seeing you closer at hand."

Coatlicue gave him a farewell in Parseltongue, eyes shaded. "Remember that a serpent hatching eggs in one part of the world can send poison falling on another, _vates_."

"I will," said Harry, and watched as the wind unbraided, and left them standing once more in the room at Hogwarts. He shook his head, let his breath out, and faced Kanerva and Jing-Xi.

"You will both help me?" he asked. "In those strictures?"

"They didn't define defensive and offensive as well as they should have," said Kanerva, who looked as if Christmas had appeared months ahead of time. "We can help you and slip the boundaries, and argue with them if they complain."

"They know Kanerva regularly violates standards," said Jing-Xi, widening her eyes slightly. "But they will not suspect me of it." She smiled at him then. "So long as we are careful, we can aid you, Harry. No open defiance, of course, and sometimes we must both go home to tend to matters in our own countries. But you will have our help."

Harry smiled in spite of himself. A little of the crushing pressure on his shoulders had relented.

_If nothing else, we might have enough strength between us to face the hive queen. Maybe._


	18. Friends and Freedom

Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter!

Warning: There is mild slash in the last scene here, easily skippable if you don't want to read it.

Thank you to the many readers who submitted suggestions for French, Spanish, and Portuguese names for use in this chapter.

**Chapter Thirteen: Friends and Freedom**

Harry hadn't known it was possible for Hagrid's face to brighten up quite this much, but apparently he'd underestimated how much the news would mean to him.

"You're goin' to free the hippogriffs, Harry?" he said, while waving around a hand that caused Harry to duck. Owen made a sharp movement behind him, as if he had to remind himself Hagrid was a friend. "That's _great_ news! What made yeh decide on now to free 'em, if yeh don't mind me askin'?"

"Partly because they're one of the few species in the Forbidden Forest I haven't freed," said Harry. "If the hive queen attacks through the Forest, or Voldemort, for that matter—" Hagrid tried valiantly to control his flinch."—the others could flee if worst came to worst, but the hippogriffs' web would restrain them from going far." He hesitated, then gave a little shrug. "And because I did hope they might agree to help in the war. As scouts, mostly. I wouldn't let wizards ride them unless they chose to have riders."

"They'll be chuffed to help, Harry, chuffed!" Hagrid's eyes shone. "'Course, they're proud as anythin', but they'll agree to a contract of sorts, a promise or a bargain. And as long as no one violates that bargain, they won't, either." He gave Harry a searching stare, a bit of worry returning to his face. "But yeh'll tell—yeh'll tell others not to hurt 'em, o'course?"

Owen snorted. Harry concealed his own reaction to that—it would be more likely hippogriffs who hurt wizards than the other way around—and nodded. "Of course I will, Hagrid."

"Then come on." Hagrid grabbed a lantern from the wall and led them out of the hut, towards the darkening Forest.

Harry took a deep breath of cool air and tried to make himself calm down. He had decided to free the hippogriffs for the reasons he said; even if they didn't agree to help the fledgling war effort, they should be able to fly if they had to, and get out of danger's way. But he had a private, selfish reason for it as well, one that he hadn't even told to Owen, though he thought Owen might have sensed it.

He needed to break a web. It always gave him a sense of freedom, the hope that his life wasn't defined by the war, and that someday he would be past all this and able to return to _vates_ work for the rest of his life.

And today had been a more trying day in that respect than most. He'd had a fight with Draco this morning. It hurt more than it normally would.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

"What made you study air in the first place, though?" Harry asked. He thought that he might understand Kanerva better if he could just get an answer to this question. So far, though, she seemed extremely unwilling, or maybe unable, to provide an answer to even an inquiry this simple.

The Dark Lady, who sat on a chair in the Slytherin common room with most of her body fuzzed into nothingness, gave him a baffled look. "What else would I give myself to?"

"Does it have to do with your history, then?" Harry asked. Jing-Xi had told Harry that she had no idea where Kanerva originally came from, who her parents had been, or why she had chosen to study wind, either. She had simply introduced herself to the Pact when she was twenty-five as a new Dark Lady, and that had been twenty-five years ago.

"You could say so," said Kanerva. "But I would not."

"What would you say?"

"That it is a question whose answer is so obvious you should be able to see it for yourself," Kanerva answered, and turned her head away.

"If she doesn't want to answer the question, Harry, then she doesn't have to."

Harry turned his head and blinked. Draco was coming down the stairs into the Slytherin common room. He looked half-ill, a sign of how little sleep he was getting lately. Harry didn't understand why Draco insisted on staying up with him until all hours of the night. Harry was used to cat-naps by now, and he made sure to try for an unbroken night of sleep at least once every few days. Draco simply needed to rest more often than that, but lately he seemed more than reluctant to admit it.

"And if you do not want to walk on the stairs, then you do not have to," Kanerva told Draco, and a gust of wind picked up the ends of her hair, where they trailed off into fuzz, and made them dance.

Harry concealed a sigh. Kanerva had taken an immediate dislike to Draco. He couldn't understand why, but Jing-Xi had advised him not to worry about it. Kanerva wanted to stay here and help, because Harry intrigued her. She might not be sane, but she was capable of understanding that Harry would not let her stay and help if she injured his partner.

"I need to," Draco retorted, his face going ugly now, perhaps simply because someone had contradicted him; Harry didn't know. "Not all of us have enough power to fly around like you do. My Lady."

"Wind is more than flying," said Kanerva, voice gone unexpectedly soft and passionate, the way that Harry knew Voldemort talked about torture. "Wind is destruction, the heart of the howling storm that strikes anywhere it wishes because it does not care about the earth below. The wind is the lover of the sea, not the land. And, someday, the sea will be the death of it all. Stones, and soil, and sand, and trees, they will seek and find an ending in the ocean."

Harry felt his skin prickle as he listened. Jing-Xi had said something about Kanerva wanting to hasten the destruction of the world, which was one reason she had added her power to the wild Dark's the Midwinter when Fawkes died. It was entirely possible, of course, that she would not seek to fulfill that ambition while she was in Britain, but Harry didn't think she'd given it up, either.

Draco laughed, unpleasantly, the way that he might have laughed at some of Luna's madder ramblings. Harry knew it was the tiredness that was making him act so. Under ordinary circumstances, he would have known to hold his tongue around a witch as powerful as a Dark Lady. And Luna would only have blinked and asked if he were having a speech problem anyway, the way that she did when students of Ravenclaw called her Loony.

But he did not keep silent now, and Kanerva was no Luna.

In a moment, Draco's face had gone blue as the air in his immediate area deserted him, while a swathe of wind too cold and hard to breathe circled behind him and scooped him up so that he hung from his ankles near the wall. Harry stood quickly. A fall from that height would mean he cracked his head open on the floor of the Slytherin common room.

"Kanerva," he said.

"I suppose you want him back unharmed," said the Dark Lady, sounding sulky. "Even though he insulted me."

"It would be—nice, yes," said Harry, while fighting furiously with his instincts. They told him to move right now, that he had to rescue Draco, but he had never faced anyone like this before. He knew he could overpower Evan Rosier, and he could drain Voldemort's magic, but Kanerva was an ally.

_Supposedly_.

"And you won't let me stay here if I don't comply?" Kanerva asked.

Harry kept one eye on Draco's blue face, trying to calculate all the while how long he'd been without air, and how long humans in general could survive without it. "That's right," he said.

Kanerva sighed gustily, and returned Draco to the floor. A moment later, his chest heaved, sucking in desperate gulps of air. Kanerva herself became a whirling dervish, and then a vortex of black and white wind, and then was gone. Harry knew she hadn't gone far, though. Kanerva was the only witch he had ever met whose power of shapeshifting involved entirely dissipating her body into an amorphous form. She would be wandering through Hogwarts in various shapes of air, all the while listening and looking for corners where she might appear to ask uncomfortable questions. In many ways, she _was_ the wind.

Harry hurried over and knelt down next to Draco, putting one hand on the pulse in his throat and bending his head so that he could hear his heart and the motion of his lungs. All seemed to be working normally. Harry stroked the hair out of his face, and asked quietly, when he saw that Draco's eyes focused on him, "All right?"

"How could you let her do that?" Draco croaked.

Harry blinked. "What?"

"I was _dying_, Harry, not unconscious or deaf." Draco struggled to sit up, but drew away from the support of Harry's arm when he tried to give it. "You didn't yell at her or attack her, the way you've always done before when I'm in danger. You spoke to her in a reasonable manner. Is it somehow different when she threatens my life than when anyone else does it?"

"She's powerful and unpredictable," Harry said. "And I couldn't really drain her magic, not without—"

"I just feel that you don't really value me any more," Draco said. "You barely speak to me when I'm there, you only seek my opinion when it's about Malfoy Manor or something else that you think I'm already qualified to speak to you about, you don't seem to remember I'm alive, you're always telling me to go to bed and leave you alone—"

"Because you're tired and distraught," said Harry. "The way you are now," he couldn't help adding. "And that _matters_ when it comes to battle, Draco. I understand that you want to stay with me every moment, but making yourself sick from stress and lack of sleep won't help either of us."

"I am _not_ tired and distraught," Draco snarled, which only confirmed Harry's opinion that he was. "Don't you dare imply that I need to control myself."

"You do," said Harry. "You always do. But lately, that control has been slipping."

"I'm sorry I'm not good enough for you, then," Draco muttered, his voice choked with bitterness.

_This is one of those arguments where it only gets worse the more I talk._ Harry decided to back off. He stood up. "I'll tell Syrinx to protect you today, instead of trading places with one of the others at my shoulder," he said quietly. "And make sure that you get some sleep."

"I'm not a _child_, and I don't need a _minder._"

"Right now, you're acting like one," said Harry, and then he left. Outside the Slytherin common room, he took a deep breath and shook his head. _You know it's just the tiredness. He'll be better when he actually has some sleep, always assuming that Syrinx manages to convince him to get some. He doesn't hate you._

It was hard to convince himself of that, though. The bad thing about deciding to rely on others more than he had in the past was that then it hurt more when they were angry with him.

He went to find Owen—Syrinx was already coming towards him, attracted by his desire for her presence—and then to research and prepare for attacks. The first refugees would be heading for safehouses today. He hoped there was yet a chance that he might convince Michael Rosier-Henlin to go with his mother and little sister.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Hagrid led them by means of a path Harry hadn't seen before; of course, given all the unorthodox ways that he usually came into the Forest, he would have been more surprised if he _had_ seen it, by this point. Hagrid's lantern flashed and swung in front of them, and Harry had the impression of numerous creatures slinking off just out of sight. He also heard the steady thump of hooves from the centaurs, and guessed they were escorting them to make sure no one "accidentally" wandered off the path. Or perhaps to guarantee his safety, for all he knew.

Harry let out a deep breath and shook his head. He had to concentrate his thoughts if he was going to successfully break the hippogriffs' web, and that didn't include thinking about random details.

At last the path played out into a low clearing surrounded by trees whose trunks looked blue in the light. Hagrid gave a high call, something like a screech and a neigh mingled, and Harry saw long, awkward limbs move as a hippogriff stirred up from a mass of the sleeping creatures and headed towards them.

Harry caught his breath as he watched him approach. The hippogriff had an eagle's head, of course, and a gray horse's lower body, but his eyes were the dangerous mad orange of a goshawk's. Harry could see why people would think him dangerous, even without the rituals one needed to use to address him.

"Yeh know what t' do, Harry," Hagrid instructed him in a low voice. "Look 'im in the eye, mind, and bow. This 'ere is Buckbeak."

Harry bowed, bending his neck slowly and stiffly, never removing his eyes from the hippogriff's. Buckbeak stared back at him for long moments. Harry waited. It was only safe if Buckbeak bowed to him in turn. Otherwise, Harry would simply have to give up the notion of freeing the hippogriffs and making a bargain with them, at least with Buckbeak as the representative. Perhaps Hagrid knew another hippogriff who would be amenable.

The hippogriff's wings quivered as he examined Harry intently. Then, abruptly, he bowed back, great head swinging down as though he were a water-bird stabbing fish on the bottom of a pond. Harry relaxed, and stood upright again, reaching out one hand to touch the tufted feathers. Buckbeak let him, even cocking his head and fanning his wings up and down slightly, in what might be pleasure or simply welcome.

"There yeh go, Harry," Hagrid said. Owen let out a loud, huffing breath, and Harry suspected he'd just let go of his wand. "Now. They can understand a lot more than they can speak, if yeh get my meanin', but yeh might want to use that phoenix voice o' yers, just in case."

Harry nodded, and softly began to sing, not breaking eye contact with Buckbeak. He showed the web, which he could see coiled in drowsing rings around the hippogriff's claws, breaking, and the whole flock dancing freely above the Forest and coming down in untamed forests in other areas. In return, they drew back from human prey, both wizard and Muggle, and the other sentient magical creatures, and watched them in amused tolerance. Prey like rabbits and weasels was enough for them.

Harry deliberately didn't show images of the war. He didn't want to make Buckbeak think that the hippogriffs' help was required as a condition of breaking their web. They would be free no matter what, but if they chose to help, they would be welcomed. Harry would like to have more numerous scouts or spies than the Gloryflower flying horses, and especially ones that moved more swiftly and could direct themselves, not needing riders.

Buckbeak clacked a few times, talons scraping slowly through the dirt. Then he made another bow, and turned his head sharply to the side, this time nipping at Harry's ear almost like an owl. Harry held very still and tried not to flinch. Unlike an owl, Buckbeak could easily tear the ear _off_ if displeased.

"That's it," Hagrid breathed.

Other hippogriffs were coming forward now, including a delicate roan one whom Buckbeak promptly draped a wing over—a mate, Harry thought, or maybe a sibling or child. All stared with wild, wary, proud eyes, but when Harry sang the same visions he'd used on Buckbeak, talons scraped and beaks clicked in agreement. Perhaps they were tired of being shut in one forest, Harry thought. He had heard that hippogriffs were great wanderers. So long as they refrained from killing humans or magical creatures, he didn't think their lifestyle would greatly change as they wandered.

When he was sure he had agreement from every one of them, Harry narrowed his eyes so that only the web existed, and set about breaking it.

He found almost at once that this was the simplest web he'd ever approached—rather like a bridle of old leather that had grown worn and soft with many uses. It had been woven for obvious reasons, to keep the flock in one place and away from humans so they wouldn't attack, and there was little personal animosity bound into it as had happened with the house elves and even the centaurs. Harry carefully undid the tangles, and when the web would have reared up like a sleepy serpent being disturbed, sang to it. It liked the lullaby, and settled down, sighing. Harry undid coil after coil, looping and draping it over his arms and his feet, and the web didn't appear to notice that the prisoners it had chained for so long were now going free.

Harry was aware of a deep calm in himself as he worked, bordering on quiet delight. _This_ was what he should be doing all the days of his life, he thought. _This_ was what he had chosen, the one path and the one task not forced on him by prophecy or his training or the vagaries of his life. Dumbledore and his mother hadn't meant to raise a _vates_. Voldemort didn't want him to be one. Even Draco and Snape were against it most of the time. The magical creatures, bound as they all had been three years ago, had been in no position to lay demands on him. This he did purely and solely because he wanted to.

_And I will do it again._

At last he held the old web in his hands, watching it sway in its sleep and snuggle and whisper to itself. Then he lifted his hands and blew on them. The web fractured into dust, blowing away entirely. Harry smiled thinly. _If only they were all that easy._

He glanced up at Buckbeak, whom he'd continued watching from the corner of one eye, and saw him testing his wings as if he couldn't quite believe the web was gone. Before he could launch himself into the sky and take the rest of the flock with him, Harry sang again.

This time he filled his voice with the throbbing beat of war-drums, singing the glories and the responsibilities and the sad duties of all of them in a time of such battle. The hippogriffs did not have to join in, but if Harry's side fell, then there would be less freedom from all of them. Voldemort would not content himself with taking fallen feathers and scraps of skin for potions ingredients, as most people did now. He would hunt the hippogriffs mercilessly, kill them in their prime and in their pride, and take their children away, simply because he could.

Buckbeak screeched, bringing Harry back from the song. He took a step backward, hoping that he hadn't irritated the hippogriff with the images. Buckbeak might decide to attack the one who'd provided them instead of Voldemort.

But the hippogriff was scraping his talons in the dirt instead, and half-rearing, so that his wings flared around him. Behind and beside him, the rest of the flock took fire, dancing in the same way, calling out as passionately as if there were an enemy before them right now.

"That's it, Harry!" Hagrid yelled, in the midst of the screaming, which reminded Harry of the way an eagle might call out before diving on an enemy. "They'll help yeh now!"

Harry bowed again to Buckbeak, and cast a number of quick Disillusionment Charms, the usual means used to keep hippogriffs from the sight of Muggles when people owned them as domestic animals. He linked the Disillusionment Charms to the hippogriffs' own magic, though, most of which went towards allowing them to fly. They would not be invisible to each other, and when they truly needed to become visible for some reason—such as mating or defending their territory from another flock—the Charms would falter, subdued by the rush of powerful instincts.

Harry sang again, this time holding out images of the first designated safehouse, Cobley-by-the-Sea. Could the flock begin their patrols there, looking for signs of Death Eater activity or Dark magic?

Buckbeak trumpeted importantly, and rose, wings spread all around him. The noises he used to call the others were softer this time, more like neighs, though still intimidating, considering how tall he was when he reared. Then he flicked his tail at Harry, bowed one more time, and was aloft, wheeling around with a speed that made the tree branches sag before him.

The rest of the flock had joined him in moments, the delicate roan hippogriff pacing him easily. Harry thought he saw the moonlight flash once in Buckbeak's orange eyes before they were high enough that such details couldn't easily be seen, and the flock trailed away into the distance, headed for the horizon.

There came a deep snuffling sound to his right, and Harry looked over to see Hagrid wiping at his eyes and nose with a large red handkerchief. "I'm sorry they couldn't stay," Harry murmured, suddenly wondering if Hagrid had really wanted the flock to leave.

Hagrid blew his nose once, and then shook his head. "I knew they had to go," he said roughly. "They were miserable 'ere, most of the time. They knew the Forest too well, and hippogriffs, the best of 'em gets restless when that happens. And they might come back sometimes, right?"

Harry smiled. "Of course they might," he said, and lifted his head to watch the flock disappearing one more time.

"Harry," said Owen suddenly, sharply, and his hand clamped down on Harry's shoulder. "There's someone here. People in the Forest who shouldn't be. I just heard voices." He aimed his wand over Harry's head, and Harry heard him murmur a pain curse, followed by a time-delaying charm that would launch it when their enemies appeared and not before.

Harry narrowed his eyes. McGonagall had refined the wards in the Forest so that they would catch those who approached Hogwarts with hostile intent, which argued these wizards and witches weren't hostile, but it was disturbing, nonetheless, that they had managed to get this close. He lifted his own hand, summoning his magic around him.

A moment later, a slender man stepped into sight around the back side of the hippogriffs' dell. "_Vates_?" he asked, with an accent that niggled at the back of Harry's mind; he thought he'd heard it before, or a milder version of it, but he couldn't immediately place it. He did know that this wizard wore blue robes with a silver symbol affixed to them that he hadn't seen before, a circle surrounding a pair of clasping hands. "We thought we would find you here. The hippogriffs rising are a strange thing, and where there is a strange thing, why, there is Harry _vates._" He grinned. He had dark hair and eyes, like Snape, but from that smile, he hadn't known a tenth part of the bitterness that Snape had.

"Who are you?" Harry asked, trying and failing to smile. He simply couldn't trust anyone that easily anymore.

"My name is Xavier Deschamps," said the man, and bowed, adding a phrase in French that Harry couldn't translate. _That explains his accent, at least. _"The French Minister thought it wise to send me and some of my people to your aid."

Harry stared. He had hoped for some international pressure that might change minds at home, or perhaps ease Juniper's crushing presence. He hadn't imagined that he might have actual help.

"Not only the French Minister," added a female voice behind him, and a witch pushed forward until she stood beside Xavier. Her accent was different, but Harry couldn't identify it until she fixed him with eyes as sharp as a predator bird's and said, "My name is Maria Esperanza Diez Lozano. Call me Esperanza. I prefer this."

"And you're from Spain," said Harry, feeling quite proud for having grasped that much.

"Yes." Esperanza didn't seem inclined to provide more information, but simply stood there staring at him. Harry would have questioned her further, on exactly what her relationship to the Spanish Ministry was and what she was doing there, but still a third person came up beside Esperanza, and Harry had to turn his attention to her.

The newcomer was a tiny witch, with her head lifted as if to make up for her lack of height, and dark eyes with the faint squint that Lily had once told Harry marked a long-time duelist, used to peering down her wand to direct spells or watching the minute movements of an opponent's hand in hopes of guessing what curse would arrive next. She wore a yellow robe slashed with black, and yet another symbol Harry didn't know, this one a pair of towers on a medallion around her neck.

"And I am Leonor Susana Silvas Nevas Andrade," she said. "From Portugal." She peered at Harry, and waited.

"Welcome to all of you," said Harry. He suspected from the voices he heard moving back on the path that they weren't alone. Of course, if each Ministry had decided to send some Aurors, then they wouldn't be, he thought, dazed. But he hadn't yet confirmed that they were Aurors, or what they were doing on Hogwarts grounds at all.

He shook his head and gathered up the shards of his dignity. "Shall we move inside the school?"

SSSSSSSSSSS

An hour later, with some tea inside of him, the Room of Requirement enlarged to hold a hundred fifty battle-trained wizards and witches, and an Alertness Charm he'd performed when he was relatively sure no one was looking, Harry felt better able to command the situation.

He sat at the central table in the Room, which had four chairs, much to Harry's displeasure. He'd tried to make it conjure another seat for Owen, but the Room seemed to think it appropriate that only the leaders sit around the table, while the others remained in chairs along the walls. Since Owen refused to move from Harry's shoulder, he was still standing.

Xavier was leaning back, spinning his wand in his hand and still smiling. Harry wondered if the effect came from a Cheering Charm, or simply long experience. He had told Harry he was the head of Cercle Familial, an organization within the French Ministry which worked closely with the Veela Council. Most of its Aurors had Veela blood, and they'd trained to handle both diplomatic crises and those that required more vigorous exercise with their wands. Since Harry's major connections with France so far had come through people who had Veela blood, the Minister had appointed Xavier and fifty of his best people to go to England.

Harry had asked him if he'd _wanted_ to come. Xavier had simply smiled and said that yes, he had, and Harry couldn't quite get any more out of him. For all his continual smiling, he was more enigmatic than he appeared.

Esperanza's group was more mixed, mostly Spanish Aurors, but with a few _cuidadores_, who, from what Harry could make out, were those specifically interested in bringing magical creatures into open visibility again in Spain. They'd all almost instantly attacked Harry the moment they were introduced, talking so quickly that Harry had been forced to use a translation charm. The loudest of them seemed to be Bartolomé, who kept hold of Harry's hand as he explained that he'd tried for decades to convince the Spanish government to free the large, nameless beast chained up at Altamira, but that they hadn't been interested in slating the money or the people needed to study the web that bound it. He was sure that a _vates_ could get through the bonds that had so far baffled the best _cuidadores_. Every time they believed they understood the structure of the web, they uncovered another layer. They thought now it might well be magic thousands of years old, which would need a Lord-level wizard's power to shatter it even if completely understood.

Esperanza had been silent for the most part, but when she had snapped at Bartolomé to stop clutching Harry and sit down, he'd obeyed her instantly. She had hardly spoken at all, though she would respond when asked questions. Harry wondered if he was imagining the sneer that seemed permanently attached to her upper lip, or not. If not for that sneer, she would have seemed entirely regal. She might have made Andromeda Tonks squirm a bit.

Leonor was different again. Harry had the impression that she was too self-confident to be self-conscious. She'd shaken his hand enthusiastically, and admired the decorations in the Room of Requirement, and interrupted Xavier or Esperanza a few times to ask questions about what Harry was doing in the war. Harry couldn't help relaxing when he spoke to her. She might be overwhelming in day-to-day conversation, but at least she was pleasant.

Barely any of the fifty Portuguese wizards and witches who had accompanied her were Aurors at all. Instead, if Harry had grasped things correctly, they represented eight or nine different groups in Portugal, vaguely like political parties, but smaller. They had come to make sure their interests were protected. And at least nine of them were Dark. The rest were Light or undeclared, but the Light wizards talked as openly to the Dark ones as if they had no conflict with them at all, and in fact, they seemed more likely to take sides over political issues than because of allegiance.

Harry wished Juniper could see them. It would have made his head burst like a melon dropped from Gryffindor Tower.

He turned now to Xavier. So far he'd tried as best he could to learn the basics, but it was time to ask more probing questions. "And your governments have no problem at all with this?" he tried now. "They don't care about my age, or the fact that they could be seen as opposing the British Minister's right to do what he wants with his people?"

Xavier's lip curled a bit. "The Dark Lord is not to be fought this way," he said. "By one boy and the people he can recruit? It is wrong. And if the Acting Minister will not give him help, we will."

"The Channel is not a large body of water," Leonor broke in, as she had a tendency to do, Harry had noted, sipping a cup of tea the room had conjured for her. She was the only person who'd seemed to want one. "And though the distance from the shores of England to Portugal is a bit farther than that from Dover to Calais, still, this is no comfortable thing. We know that the Dark Lord will strike for us when he is finished with you. And the only Ladies in Europe are Dark, and not inclined to protect us."

"We have the right and the grace to be here," said Esperanza. "Accept this."

Harry briefly entertained the thought of what would happen when Esperanza and Snape met, then pushed it out of his head. "Very well, then," he said. "I could use help to guard the safehouses, which will be more vulnerable than Hogwarts will be. But the _cuidadores_ and those members of the Cercle Familial who prefer diplomatic conflicts to armed ones—well, I could use you to guard the magical creatures. I expect the Ministry to try and enforce the idea that I'm more committed to magical creatures than humans soon. That _might_ result in attacks against magical creature communities by enraged or frightened wizards and witches. It might not, and if it doesn't, then certainly I'll ask for help somewhere else. But in the first place—"

"Consider it done," said Esperanza, again making it a command.

Harry nodded and glanced at Leonor. "Tell me, ma'am—"

"Leonor, please." The small woman shook her head fast enough that her hair spun around her. "The title makes me feel so _old_."

Harry hid a smile. "Leonor, then. Do—members of the various groups prefer not to work with each other?"

"I have a list here of whom you should and should not assign together," said Leonor briskly, and pulled a scroll out of her robe pocket. At a tap of her wand, it unrolled, and Leonor leaned over it, touching one symbol. "In particular, be wary of matching—"

Harry settled in to listen, his shoulders slowly sinking down from their tense position as well. He'd expected someone to interrupt at any moment and declare that _he_ wasn't meant to lead, that a mere boy couldn't do so, that he should hand the leadership over to someone more experienced and with better ability than he had to organize and strategize.

But, so far, the compromise of leading while listening intently and taking into consideration all he was told appeared to be working. Harry supposed he could trust in that until something bad actually happened.

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry stepped inside the bedroom, shut the door lightly behind him, and listened. A moment later, he rolled his eyes. Draco had never been good at faking either snores or the relaxed stillness that came with sleep.

"I know you're awake," he said, striding across to the bed and sitting on the side.

Draco popped his head out from underneath the blankets, glaring at him. "And did it ever occur to you that I might be awake, but not desire your company?" he asked, his emotions grinding under the surface of his voice like broken glass in sand.

"No," said Harry. "Because I was under the impression that it was desiring my company too much that kept you awake."

Draco flushed. "You still didn't need to let Kanerva do what she did earlier."

"You think that was a _punishment_ for staying awake?" Harry asked in befuddlement. It truly puzzled him, sometimes, the things Draco's brain came up with. Of course, currently he had the excuse of sleep deprivation, and Harry knew—very well—that hallucinations were one effect of sleep deprivation, but _still._

"No, for bothering you." Draco rolled away as though he would go back to sleep again, but Harry knew he wouldn't.

He put a hand on Draco's shoulder and rolled him back over. Draco sneered and opened his mouth to make some cutting remark, but Harry silenced him with a kiss.

Draco stiffened in surprise, then pushed at Harry's shoulder. "If you think you can avoid the argument by using sex—"

"No," said Harry, drawing back to look him in the eye. "I think that you're simply worried that you're losing your place, your relevance, in my life, because I don't speak to you all the time and we aren't as close as we used to be right now."

"And so my place is just as someone you fuck, then?"

_Merlin, Draco, you can be difficult sometimes. _But, perhaps because he had the success of the hippogriffs and the meetings with the other countries' Aurors to buoy him up right now, or perhaps just because he knew Draco and loved him for whom he was, rather than whom he wasn't, Harry didn't feel weary. Just calm. He twined a finger in Draco's hair, and shook his head. "I was under the impression that you were my partner," he said. "My lover, but also someone who shares as many aspects of my life as you comfortably can, and who's involved in a three-year ritual with me because you love me, and who's been patient and understanding with me many, many times. And someone who needs this right now."

Draco hesitated, then said, as if admitting it somehow made him weak, "I have missed this."

"So have I," Harry murmured, and pressed a kiss to his temple this time. "But I didn't want it rushed and hurried."

"Sometimes, rushed and hurried is better than none at all," Draco pointed out, and started tugging at his pyjamas.

Harry was startled into laughter as he removed his own robes. "I'll remember that next time," he said.

By the time they were both naked, Harry could feel his calm translating into desire as gentle as his pride after freeing the hippogriffs had been. He rolled over on top of Draco, something he didn't often do, given that it reminded him too much of controlling people. Tonight, though, he didn't think that he could do much wrong, and he didn't want Draco to bear the burden of being the one who took the lead.

Draco certainly didn't seem to mind, if the way he was arching and wriggling and panting against him was any indication. Harry slowed him down, however, deliberately giving the kiss his full attention until Draco relaxed and stopped moving so frantically, and then began to rock, coaxing Draco to follow him.

Harry didn't think they'd ever had sex this much like embers, so far from the sharp, blazing passion of the rituals, or the fiery need to comfort Draco that he'd felt in the wake of traumatic occurrences. Dim light and warmth flickered across his mind, now and then giving way to an unexpectedly clear moment of contact between their chests or cocks. He felt sweat sliding and snaking between them like tears, or Draco's hips arching hard enough to press their groins impossibly close, or Draco's arms clenching on the back of his neck and shoulders like a moving vise, shifting their grip as if Draco didn't know what the best way to hold him there was.

But, for the most part, it was simply motion, heat, light, warmth, dim as a room in summer with all the curtains drawn, even though now and then Harry caught a glimpse of light from the lamp or his magic, which was unwinding in lazy flowers all around them. Harry felt as if he watched from a distance, but he was also bound, body and mind circling in one endless ring, more than he ever had been before.

Draco moved a little faster as he neared his own orgasm, and then abruptly he cried out, body stiffening and trembling, little aftershocks of the motion they'd shared together so far, his eyes so tightly closed and his neck so arched that Harry would have assumed he was in pain if he didn't know better. He made sure to keep rubbing himself, lowering his own hand to stroke Draco and help him through the shock.

When Draco had finished and collapsed, nearly boneless, Harry followed him into quiet, gentle release. For some reason, he'd also imagined it'd be silent, but a groan forced its way past his lips, and he spasmed strongly, probably helped by the fact that Draco had chosen that moment to kiss him again and it felt like he couldn't get any air. For a moment, heat ate him inside and out—breathlessness in his lungs, pleasure pulling tight in his belly like the warmth of good exercise, Draco's passion claiming and drawing his own.

Then it was done, and Harry felt his own tiredness coming in on him like a rising wave. He managed to mutter a cleaning charm, but that was almost it. His eyes were already closed, and trying to open them was like fighting against Imperius.

He did manage to say, his voice not as weary as the rest of him, "The next time you need that, Draco, just ask. It's not as though I don't enjoy it too."

"I didn't want you to treat it like a duty," Draco said. Or at least Harry thought he said that, around all the yawns. He found the heat continued as Draco pulled him closer to his chest.

"Wouldn't," Harry denied, half-heartedly. He'd been up so late the last few nights, and felt so satisfied right now, that he honestly wasn't sure that sounded as clear and confident as he meant it to. "Like doing it…would _make_ time if I had to—"

And then Draco kissed him on the forehead, and then he was rather deeply asleep. Or maybe it happened the other way around. Harry wasn't that concerned about it.

It had been a good night.


	19. Wind and Light

Thanks for the review on the last chapter!

**Chapter Fourteen: Wind and Light**

Harry spasmed awake. He didn't know how long he'd been asleep, but he knew the sound of the alarms ringing in his head, and that was all that mattered.

As he listened to the distant buzzing, like a stirred hive of bees, and threw on his robes over his pyjamas, he whispered the incantation to begin the phoenix song spell. A voice answered him from his left wrist moments later, without a trace of sleepiness. For all Harry knew, Peridot Yaxley didn't sleep. He had met her only once, when he established the set of wards now ringing in his head and asked for her help, and that had been in the company of Lazuli, who'd done most of the talking. "Yes, my Lord?"

Harry didn't bother correcting her on the title. They had more important things to worry about right now. "The hive queen is approaching Hogsmeade," he said.

"How long since the wards started ringing?" Still no emotion came through her words. Harry shrugged as he ducked his head through the robe collar. He supposed that was better than someone collapsing in screaming hysterics, the way that most wizards and witches would have been after that statement.

"Less than a minute."

"Then she is coming up the road towards the village yet," said Peridot. "I will arrive soon."

Harry said, "Yes," since she couldn't see him nod, and then cut off the communication spell. He Summoned his glasses and turned around in time to see Draco sitting up, frowning at him. The wards in his head were up to the maddened buzzing of a kicked hornets' nest by now, but Harry couldn't really blame Draco for not reacting. He wasn't linked to them as Harry was.

"What is it?" he murmured.

"The hive queen is coming," said Harry, controlling the impulse to bolt out the door. If he didn't tell Draco what was happening, then Draco would follow him to find out what it was.

Draco blinked, then reached for his own robes. Harry shook his head and caught his wrist. "Only four of us are going to be in this battle," he said. "Peridot, because her magic can let her resist the hive queen's desire, and Kanerva, Jing-Xi, and I. I hope that's going to be enough to face her."

"And what about the vampires that are going to come with her?" Draco demanded. "Won't someone need to handle them, since you'll be occupied fighting the queen?"

"Hogsmeade's mostly been evacuated," Harry reminded him. There had been some stubborn wizards and witches who refused to leave their homes, despite the knowledge of what was happening, but most had been sensible and fled. Jing-Xi had filled the houses with illusions so that it looked as if the villagers still remained and went about their lives. No need to warn Voldemort of what they knew. "The vampires will barely find anyone to hurt, and Peridot will use her magic to protect and shelter those who remain."

"Does that mean I can do nothing?"

"You told me that your possession gift didn't work on the vampires," Harry said.

Draco snorted. "No, but my Killing Curse does." He flung back the covers and spelled his robes out of his trunk. "And if worst comes to worst, then I can give you magic if you falter."

Harry stared at him for a moment, weighing the chances of how much Draco could help him in the battle against the chances that Draco would be overcome by the queen's desire and become a liability.

"I want to," Draco said quietly. "You'd have to tie me down or put me under Imperius to keep me here."

Harry clenched one fist. "Then come," he said. "But Peridot has my permission to Stun you in seconds if you succumb to the queen."

"Handle her, and she won't have to," Draco said flippantly, and then knelt to retrieve his robes.

Harry reached out to Kanerva and Jing-Xi, to make sure they stood ready, though they had also been linked to the wards and should have felt the disturbance. He found Jing-Xi, who was calmly readying herself, but could not find Kanerva.

A blast of wind tore past his head, and whispered into his ear, "_I am here, and I am ready._"

Harry gave the breeze a small smile, and felt it blow ahead of him, towards Hogsmeade. Kanerva would prepare the battlefield for them, then, and monitor the hive queen's progress.

Harry did take a moment to think ahead, beyond the battle and what they must do to secure it, and how Juniper would react when he found out that there were two Ladies in Britain, adding their power to Harry's in order to turn back attacks that the Acting Minister wasn't able to prevent.

Then he shook his head and forced off the smile blooming on his face. They had to survive the battle first.

SSSSSSSSSS

Indigena walked quietly among the hive vampires, feeling a bit disgruntled. She understood why her Lord had sent her to supervise the attack on Hogsmeade. She was the most trustworthy of his current servants—though he was beginning to recruit some new ones who might do, those Dark wizards turned in his direction by the Acting Minister's outlawing of the Dark Arts—and the only one the vampires wouldn't attack, given the sappy nature of her blood. She was also, likely, the only one immune to the desire the queen gave off, although her Lord's control might be firm enough on Hawthorn to make her so. She had abandoned humanity so completely that her sexual instincts had also changed, and plants did not reproduce at the same times or in the same ways that animals did.

Still, though, this was an undignified position to be in. Indigena was coming to realize that she preferred the reality of clean battle to anything else, if she could not choose to simply retreat into her greenhouses and gardens and ignore that the outside world existed. No torture, and no sneak attacks at night for the purpose of turning the village of Hogsmeade and the school of Hogwarts into a queen's nest.

Indigena stopped walking for a moment and tilted her head back to take in the giant, pale shape that moved quietly beside her. It floated above the ground like a swollen moon, supported by hundreds of crooked human legs, the remains of vampires absorbed into the queen for the purpose of transporting her. The belly was grub-white, and stretched wider by the curled shadows of unborn blood-drinkers. Queens were the only vampires that could produce living young, as opposed to doing it by draining someone else and then turning them.

At the top, somewhere far above everything else, was the vampire's human head. Indigena had only seen her close once, a distorted, stretched woman's face—as everything about the queen was distorted and stretched—with bulging white cheeks and long red hair that glittered too much to be real. Her eyes had been squashed brown slits, hazed with the desire that she carried with her as a cloak. She had a pair of tiny, useless arms left, which gesticulated now and then when she was making a particularly important point. She did the thinking for all the vampires of her hive, and she was the one whom Voldemort had made his true bargain with, promising her a nesting site in return for her workers and drones attacking in certain specific places, sparing his servants, and leaving Connor Potter alone and alive.

_They should never have allowed a queen to become established, _Indigena thought, gazing ahead to the school and the village. _They were doomed the moment they did. The most populated wizarding village and the school with the most children in the British Isles were always going to be targets._

Of course, this queen had been cleverer than most. Most of the time, the Ministry noticed signs of a vampire hive developing and sent in Aurors to burn and smoke the vampires out, taking especial care to kill the queen. It took more than a year for a queen to fully form, and most of the time she gave in to crazed lust before that and let her workers and drones drink and rape freely. Then wizards would notice, and the hive would end.

This queen, though, had hidden herself in the sea, both as a way to avoid detection and to support her body when it grew too weighty for land, and had drawn more and more vampires, with the exception of especially wary and independent ones like Vermillion, into her web. Indigena's Lord had been aware of her, of course, but she hadn't been formed enough at the time of the Midsummer battle for him to use her. Now she was.

Indigena looked ahead to the village and shook her head.

_Not a chance._

SSSSSSSSSSSS

"I understand the queen's magic," said Peridot Yaxley, calmly removing the hood that had covered her face when she first appeared to Harry, Jing-Xi, and Kanerva. "It is a deeper manifestation of the kind that I practice. However, I cannot guarantee you total protection against it, _because_ it is deeper. I made these amulets for you, however. Hang them around your neck, and do not remove them."

She handed a medallion to Harry, who took it carefully. It felt like bronze in his hand, thick and metallic and cool, but quickly absorbing heat from his skin. He squinted, but the design traced on it was faint, and he couldn't make it out in the light of the _Lumos_ charm. He ended up slipping it over his head anyway, of course, and then he felt the chain clasp around his throat, drawing in until he felt it would choke him.

He blinked. The air felt fresher and clearer, and he realized the medallion was shielding him from the magic of lust that Peridot projected. He shook his head, and then looked up as Peridot said, with a frown, "You did not tell me that you would bring a fourth person, and so I have no fourth amulet."

"It doesn't matter," said Draco stubbornly. Harry glanced over to see him standing with his arms crossed, his wand already drawn, frowning at Peridot as if he imagined that she would cease to exist if he did. "I only want Harry in my bed. That ought to be enough to protect me against the queen."

Peridot laughed, a laugh as deep and red as the lovemaking Harry and Draco had shared three nights past, and spoke with real emotion in her voice for the first time. "And is it enough to protect you against me now, little one?" She stepped forward, and stretched out a hand. Harry felt only a prickling rush of sensation, which seemed to wash over him until it met the amulet and then stop, but Draco gave a choked gurgle and staggered towards her, eyelids fluttering.

"He is very sweet," Peridot told Harry, and the wash of sensation stopped. Draco promptly snapped his eyes open and jumped away from her, clutching his wand. Peridot ignored him as effortlessly as if he really had ceased to exist, watching Harry all the while. "And that is only a touch of the magic the queen brings. Tell your partner that he cannot withstand her if he cannot withstand me." She turned, her gown snapping around her and revealing a large portion of bare back, and strode towards Hogsmeade.

"What was that?" Draco snarled.

"The truth," said Harry, with a sigh. "That's what the queen's desire is like, Draco, only a hundred times stronger. She makes everything in the vicinity want to—well, mate. And that will make you easier prey for the vampires that follow her, as well as the queen herself." He took a step forward, staring into Draco's eyes the while. "Are you sure that you want to stay here?"

Draco took several quick, gasping breaths. Harry thought for a moment that he might ask to share his amulet, but then he shook his head and stood firm. "No. I said that I would fight with you, Harry, and I will. She has to see me to influence me, doesn't she? So if I'm hiding—"

"No," Harry said. "It's a general influence, like a miasma or a mist. Once she comes near enough—" he glanced towards the Hogsmeade road, where he could already see the moonlight gleaming from the queen's bulk "—then you'll be following the pull of your instincts, no matter what happens."

"He can have mine," Kanerva offered, sticking one hand beneath the bronze medallion and holding it away from her skin with a scowl, as if she disliked even that faint weight resting there. "I will be in the form of wind most of the time, and winds do not mate."

"And what happens when you return to your body, Kanerva?" Jing-Xi asked in a patient voice. "Then you will feel the pull of your desire. Harry and I can resist young Mr. Malfoy's magic if he turns on us. We cannot resist yours."

Kanerva seemed to consider this for a moment. Then she smiled, and the smile made Harry want to take a step away from her. "Then I will simply not return to my body," she said, and unslung the amulet from her neck, tossing it to Draco.

"_Kanerva_," said Jing-Xi sharply, and moved forward, but the Dark Lady had already shed her body, rising in a torrent of black towards the sky. Harry lost sight of her a moment later, as the flapping edges of what could have been robes and flesh melted, scattering her into the air. Jing-Xi sighed.

"Is she right?" Harry asked, watching the sky for a moment, even though he knew it was useless. From what he understood, Kanerva melted completely when she was like this. There was no way to find her in all the mass of moving air unless she wanted to be found. "Can she resist the queen's desire?"

"It operates on the body," said Jing-Xi. "Those who have no bodies, such as ghosts, can resist it, yes. But she is—wild when she is like this. I fear that she will not listen, and wander in many directions while you and I try to combat the queen. Hopefully that will not happen, as I am confident that only two Ladies and a _vates_ can resist a hive queen, but it might."

Harry sighed in turn, and reminded himself once again of the perils of inviting wild Dark allies to his side. "Well, I suppose that we'll have to trust her, as much as we can," he said, and turned to check that Draco had slid the amulet's chain over his head. Then he faced the Hogsmeade road again. The queen's desire was tangible now, a wave of heat that flooded Harry's arms like tickling fingers and made his groin feel tight and his breath come short. He knew it would have been far worse, though, without Peridot's amulet. "You're ready?" he asked Jing-Xi. "As we planned?"

"As we planned." Jing-Xi nodded, and held out a hand. Light began to beam from her palm, glinting golden sunshine that refuted both the rising storm of Kanerva's making and the foul white cave-light that came from the queen. "And let us hope that Kanerva takes her part in our symphony when the moment comes."

Harry swallowed, then called his own magic. Draco gripped his shoulder with one hand hard enough to hurt. Harry wondered if that was just to let him know he was there, or because the manifestation his magic was taking was one that Draco hadn't ever seen before.

SSSSSSSSSSS

Indigena lifted her head sharply. Yes, she could feel the queen's desire breaking over her, and she had learned to ignore it by now. But she could feel something else now, and it was not the reproductive drive to produce children which the hive mother projected. This was more like the normal human desire for fucking, and that _could_ still capture her.

Indigena knew only one person with enough of a grasp of that kind of magic to continue to affect her and enough daring to come out and use it in the middle of a hive attack. Given that this person had allied with Harry, that argued that Harry had known about the attack ahead of time.

She touched her Dark Mark and closed her eyes. Her Lord's reply came as a snarl in her head. It was only a few days since he had awakened from the wounds Harry inflicted on him in their mental duel. He was still angry that it had taken so long, and any distractions from his latest revenge-plotting annoyed him.

"My Lord," Indigena whispered. "Harry knew about the hive queen. He is waiting, and my sister Peridot is here."

Her Lord hissed like his flesh-snake, and for long moments there was otherwise silence in Indigena's head. When his voice did return, it carried the command that Indigena had feared above all others. "_Do not let her escape, Indigena. Your family must be shown the futility and the folly of opposing me. Do you understand?_"

It was hard to swallow. But she had expected it, Indigena told herself. Of course she had. The Yaxley family was powerful, and even if most of them had no special interest in the wars of Light and Dark, nearly all of them were interested in pursuing esoteric branches of magic that would make them of interest to the Light and Dark Lords. Indigena had attracted her Lord's attention because of her expertise with plants. Of course Harry could not be allowed to have Lazuli on his side, or, for that matter, Peridot, and Peridot was the weaker, without Lazuli's strange nonhuman mate to defend her.

So she must kill her sister. She had desperately hoped to be spared that fate, but she had known it might happen.

_Vita desinit, decus permanit_, she reminded herself again. It was her honor that was more important than her life, and than Peridot's life, too, since she had chosen to follow an opposite kind of honor. And though Voldemort could have ended her sister's life with a thought, causing her to burst into flames, that was not what he wanted. It was not messy or painful enough for him, and it did not test Indigena's loyalty to him as this did.

"Yes, my Lord," she whispered.

"_Good_," he said, and then he cut off that special communication line with an abruptness that warned Indigena not to abuse it. She was the only Death Eater with a way to interrupt her Lord like that. It was only to be used for emergencies.

She settled herself, took a deep breath, and gripped her wand. The vampires were flowing into Hogsmeade now, behind and beside and around the immense bulk of their queen, hunting for human prey. Indigena could hear their wails of disappointment when they found none, and see them lunging at people who flickered and vanished when touched. Illusions, Indigena guessed. Some of them might have been real, but then, that was the reason Peridot was there, probably. She would have removed the last few stubborn people who might have remained to make the illusion of habitation seem more real, or who had not believed there was going to be an attack.

Indigena stepped forward, and murmured a small spell that her grandmother had invented, one that let Yaxley blood distinguish Yaxley blood. Almost at once, she felt it around the corner of a house, and then Peridot paced into sight. She wore a variant of the red gown she had worn when Indigena met her at Lazuli's house, and her aura and the way she moved made Indigena's mouth go dry.

Peridot turned her head and saw her. She gave a smile that had nothing of amusement or fondness in it at all.

"Hello, Indigena."

And then she hit Indigena with a wave of lust.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Jing-Xi, Kanerva, and Harry had planned this carefully. Kanerva's commitment to the wind could not be changed, and Jing-Xi's raw magic functioned best as Light, although her specialties were changes, in both Transfiguration and glamours. That left Harry to find some way to link his magic with theirs, and he did not think ice would do. It was too heavy, too solid, too unmoving, unable to join the fluid dance of Kanerva's element and Jing-Xi's shaping.

So he had reached into himself, and found a connection that he had turned his back on for more than a year now, but which was still there, waiting for him, embedded not just in his bloodline or a heritage that could be forsaken, but in his memories.

Once, he had been drowning in darkness after the loss of his hand, and the unicorns had come, and rescued him, and taken him swimming in the sea off the Northumberland beach where the Potter ancestors had sailed boats into the Midsummer sunrise for centuries.

It was the sea Harry called now, the endless motion of the waves, the gray water rising and falling, the response of the tides to the moon, the ocean that, Kanerva had said, would swallow all the land up and make an end of them someday. The air around him shimmered and turned thick, moist, just on the edge of being too heavy to breathe. Harry felt his legs lift from the ground, and his hair floated around him the way that Jing-Xi's did in the enchantment that had been a gift from Kanerva. Draco gasped behind him. Harry looked back to make sure he was well, and saw his eyes wide, his throat straining against the clasp of Peridot's amulet as he sucked in air.

Harry reached out, and his magic swirled around him, flowing higher than the roofs of the houses in Hogsmeade before subsiding, turning into a pale mass of water illuminated by the sun and ruffled by the moving air that Kanerva was summoning in greater and greater quantities. The alliance of three elements, wind and water and fire, the three that could move, against the heavy stillness of the earth that the queen bore with her and wanted to dig into, should work better than any other combination of their unalike powers that they'd been able to devise on such short notice.

He turned and looked down the road, and the hive queen was moving through Hogsmeade now, accompanied by the scurrying black carcasses of humans who should have lain down and died already. Harry could feel the desire pouring off the queen even now, crashing like waterfalls into his sea-magic—where it was swallowed. Kanerva's winds blew and tattered it like clouds, and Jing-Xi's light burned it so that the magic recoiled back on the queen like cockroaches running from the sun.

"Now?" Harry mouthed, looking at Jing-Xi from the corner of his eye. Jing-Xi nodded, and took the first step in the dance, raising her hands above her head and then bringing them down towards the ground in a triangle.

The air in Hogsmeade turned to fire. Beam after beam of sunlight slanted from her fingers and stroked the vampires, transforming them into puffs of colliding ashes. Then they hit the hive queen and burned deep slashes across her belly, frying the embryos curled there, making the very air shiver with a stink that the winds at once tossed away. Harry shuddered in revulsion at the queen's keening cry, like nothing human, but knew it was not enough to finish her. One Lady could not stand against the hive queen, and if she got closer, then the amulets Peridot had made would probably not protect her against the queen's might.

Harry took the next step of the dance, and the ghost of the sea dashed forward at his command, its currents catching the still-living vampires and bearing them off their feet. The smell of foam and salt breasted the stink of the roasting queen, and the wind seemed perfectly happy to carry _those_ odors. Harry saw walls of darkness briefly obliterate Jing-Xi's sunbeams, and then catch them and gleam like waves illuminated on a summer day, and then crash down around the queen, rupturing that swollen belly with the sheer force of water, which was tougher than stone when it grew that strong, as Harry had reason to know.

She screamed again, and this time her magic fully concentrated on answering them, instead of spreading a fog around her. Harry felt as if his feet were trying to grow roots. Every hair stood away from his body, yearning for union with the ground. He wanted to _stop_ moving, to just stay still and be fucked. His body strained against the pull of the water, and he heard himself utter a deep groan.

Draco groaned into his ear in response, and his arm slid around Harry's chest, drawing him back to rest against him. The waves that curled past them made the movement slow, dream-like. That, and the contact itself, was distracting Harry from his fight with the queen.

"Who are they?" That was Jing-Xi's voice, and it seemed faint and far away, but the flash of the sun in Harry's eyes made it important that he stop paying attention to the way Draco was nibbling on his neck for a moment and concentrate. He lifted his head, blinking wearily against the temptation to close his eyes.

Four figures were heading for the remains of Hogsmeade at a dead run. It was very hard for Harry to see the one in the lead; shadows jumped and boiled around him, fending off Jing-Xi's sunbeams. But the others were clear enough, if only for the utter strangeness of what accompanied them, and that strangeness—and maybe a wavering in the queen's attention towards the newcomers—woke Harry from his daze.

One figure, a man, had enormous black creatures galloping beside him, with mysterious ivory gleams near their mouths. When they separated from him and pounded forward, then Harry could make them out: boars, dark as midnight, with the ivory gleams their tusks. They squealed, enormous, grating sounds that overwhelmed the noise of their trotters, as they slammed into the side of the queen and ripped her open with those tusks. She tried to kick out at them with her human legs, but the great pigs wheeled away with deadly grace and attacked again, every stiff hair along their spines bristling.

Harry thought he was beginning to figure it out now. The shadow-cloaked figure would match Vermillion. And he had told Harry that one of his companions was called Adonis—Adonis, the lover of Aphrodite who had died when a boar he was hunting cut an enormous wound in his side. It made sense that a vampire named Adonis would have created or tamed or grown magical boars as weapons, at least if his name was anything more than an idle boast.

A chorus of women, transparent as ghosts save for their long, trailing dark hair, wailing in unearthly voices as they swam around him, surrounded the second visible male vampire. At first Harry thought they were swimming in his sea-magic, but then he realized they actually ducked in and out of the earth, curveting back into sight like dolphins only to vanish again. They came up right under the human legs of the queen and chopped at them, trying to tip her over.

_Tammuz. That second vampire with Vermillion was Tammuz. And Tammuz had a lover named Ishtar associated with the earth. _

And last came the vampiress, whom Harry knew Vermillion had called Psyche, unwinding a glittering skein of red and silver from her arms and flinging it wide. It opened into the wings of a hundred, a thousand, an exploding cloud of butterflies, all of which had serrated blades sticking out from their wings. They made for the vampire queen's side, and then up her sides, and from the next screech, Harry thought they must have attacked her human head.

For a moment, the vampire queen absolutely could not concentrate, wracked as she was with pain and confusion, the boars spinning around her, the transparent women grabbing at her legs, the butterflies sawing at her.

And then Kanerva finally, finally took her place in the pattern of wind and light and water.

SSSSSSSSSS

Indigena was thinking of the curses that she should use on her sister. She would swear to it. And yet somehow she was noticing the way that Peridot's hair shone in the light of the fires in the village instead, and she was taking one step forward and then another, and then she stood in front of Peridot while her sister raised one hand and traced the curves of her face.

"You have strayed so far from true honor that you would not recognize it if it embraced you, Indigena," Peridot said softly. Then she smiled, and the smile made Indigena moan. "I suppose that I'll have to do this in its place."

Indigena struggled to move, wanting her Lord to send a bolt of pain through the Dark Mark so that she would have an easier time resisting this. Of course, that didn't happen. Of course, she only moved closer to her sister instead, and Peridot kissed her, foully, sweetly, with an open mouth and a tongue that touched Indigena's like the shock of a needle going home.

Indigena felt her thorns slide out of the sheaths on her back, but instead of lunging, they swayed above her, gentled. She had gone too long without pleasant contact, unless one counted the love she felt when her roses and her tendrils wound around her. They would not strike, Indigena realized in growing despair that only deepened when Peridot pushed at her and she fell to the ground in a tangle of robes.

The fall itself was dreamlike, the ground a harsh contrast, the earth slamming into and impressing on her back and shoulders. Indigena tried to stand, but Peridot knelt over her and laid one hand on her breasts, keeping her in place, and Indigena was aware as she had not been in years of the tightening of her skin, human skin, over the shadows of leaves and flowers beneath it.

Peridot kissed her a second time, and stroked her neck, and laughed as if thinking about something else. Then she said, "I could humiliate you further, sister, but I see no need to do that. Only remember that your contempt for your sisters' magic makes you weak, and always will."

One more kiss, almost enough to remove all trace of shame and dishonor from Indigena's mouth in the twist of dizzy pleasure, and then Peridot Apparated away with a snap. Indigena dropped her head against the earth and panted, clenching one hand in the dirt. Her thorny rose fluttered and wanted to dig into the ground. If not for the fact that she had larger duties to face and an honor debt to consummate, Indigena would have let it.

_I will tell my Lord to annihilate Peridot with the Meleager's Fire potion the moment I return, _she thought, standing shakily. _She is too dangerous to be left living._

She was in time to turn and see the utter failure of the attack.

SSSSSSSSSSS

Kanerva's wind came down from the sky like the living hand of a beast.

Harry remembered what Jing-Xi had told him once. _She wants the destruction of all living things…_

And it certainly seemed like it, as the storm's shriek quickly built to an outraged howl. The wind struck underneath the vampire queen, bearing her from her legs at last, and making her collapse with a _thump_ that Harry's water and Jing-Xi's magic had to work hastily to cushion, so as not to send them down with her. Vermillion's vampires rolled and jumped neatly out of the way. The hive vampires running around the queen were not so lucky, and many of them died in her fall. Harry did see Vermillion grab one of the few survivors and tear him apart the way someone might take the different pieces from a jigsaw puzzle, devouring the blood that dripped from his opened throat and, it seemed, at least half his flesh.

Kanerva's wind turned, coming back around, and Harry blinked as he remembered what he was supposed to do now. Jing-Xi's magic was rising, a wall of sunlight. He hastened to join his water to it, in the form of a wave that rose at the far end of the village and began running towards the downed queen. The sunlight rode it, dancing and sparkling in its crest.

At the same moment as the wave arrived, Kanerva's hurricane descended and met it.

Harry gasped. Magic rang and shuddered through him, grasping and shaking him so violently that for a moment he could understand why Voldemort would grab and drain everyone he could. There was no place for morality in the face of power like this, only the consuming desire to have more and more of it.

Light and Dark and undeclared, water and fire and air, the three paths of power mingled together, and Harry could feel Jing-Xi and Kanerva close to him in ways that only Connor had been before. Together, they poured all their magic down on the hive queen writhing on the ground. One wish guided all of them, a wish that Kanerva articulated, because she was the one who wanted it most.

_Die!_

And the hive queen wailed, and tried to fight back, but too many signals were striking her divided mind at once, as Vermillion and the other vampires ruthlessly reaped her children, made them feel pain, drained their blood, killed them, and she also tried to respond to her own danger. Harry could feel her spasming, convulsing, the way he thought an ocean wave might feel those crushed to death underneath it. Still their magic crashed and burned and blew, and the hive queen wailed once more and finally died like a squashed bug.

Then came the harder part: calling his magic back to him. Harry sagged, quietly trembling, and pictured the sea withdrawing at low tide. The waves would ebb out from the shore, and reveal sand that had been hidden under water before. He wanted his magic to come back to him in the same way, and leave the houses of Hogsmeade alone, as well as whatever vampires might still be racing around as prey for Vermillion and his companions.

The magic did not want to listen to him. It danced and tugged at its leash, begging to stay out and play. Didn't Harry think it felt wonderful? Didn't he want to crush other things, and send his magic flowing across Scotland, to rouse sleeping witches and wizards out of bed with the sound of the sea?

_No_, Harry told it sharply. _Come back here, now._

The magic whined, but in the end, Harry was the one who held the leash, and it was what must obey. It tagged back to him, sullen, and curled up in his body. Harry slammed down walls of desire around it. He _did not_ want to control others. He _did not _want to let it out to play. What it had done was quite enough. Killing a hive queen didn't happen every day. Couldn't it be still now?

At last it was, though Harry could feel a final flicker of defiance before it lost its separate personality and blended into his. He opened his eyes, shook his head, and found himself leaning against Draco. He stepped gently away, and smiled at him.

"All collected again, I think," he said.

"That's almost too bad," said Draco, and Harry saw the desire burning in his eyes. He stifled a laugh. At least they could say it was the reflection of the lust that the vampire queen had engendered. He glanced up as he heard a triumphant howl, and saw Kanerva appear briefly on the roof of a house, dancing there, her robes and her swirling hair and her skin of one piece with the motion of the wind. Then she was gone again, unbraided and unwound and taken up into the air. Harry supposed that could be another reason his magic was reluctant to come back. It had seen what Kanerva's magic was free to do, and it wanted the same unrestrained playground.

"All right?" Jing-Xi asked him. Harry turned and looked at her. She, of course, was perfectly calm and composed. The magic of the Light was tamer than any magic mingled with Dark, Harry thought.

"Yes, I think so," he said, and glanced out at the battlefield, searching for a trace of Vermillion and his companions. They were gone, though. Harry shook his head. _He did say that he would be my ally whether I wanted him to or not. I suppose this was an example of that._

"Kanerva?" he asked, when a breeze blew past his ears that was far too cold for a July night.

"Let her play," Jing-Xi said. "She would be sullen if we called her in now, and she will not damage anything, I think. There has been enough killing to content her. She will dance in the highest heavens." She tilted her head back and looked up at the stars with a fond little smile.

Harry followed her gaze, seeing a whirlwind that formed, obscuring one constellation and then another, soaring up and then up, and then vanishing and losing itself in the general darkness of the night.

"She joined us," he said. _This time._

Jing-Xi smiled at him. "Yes," she said. "We worked together, three Lord-level wizards acting to defeat a single enemy. It is the first time in centuries."

Harry could see why. The Pact, of course, was wary of each other, and had the rule about non-interference in other countries. But, more than that, the sheer addiction of such powerful magic pounded in the back of his head and still soared like a second heartbeat through his blood.

_You have the gift of acquiring more, if you should choose it._

Harry shook his head and pushed the thought away. It was one that had come from that darkest part of him that others preferred to pretend didn't exist. He knew how to quell it, too, and how to shed the exultation of battle: go and look at the corpses, clean them up, and hope that no villagers had died before Peridot had been able to evacuate them.

"Come on," he said, and moved towards the center of the village, hearing Jing-Xi follow and Draco mutter about him always needing to ruin the moment.

Above them, Kanerva danced and danced, the winds bearing laughter to Harry's ears sometimes, throughout and within the endless expanse of sky.


	20. Twisted Meetings

Thanks for the review on the last chapter!

**Chapter Fifteen: Twisted Meetings**

The invitation from the Ministry hadn't been so much an invitation as a command, Harry thought, as he adjusted his robes and tried to look non-threatening. The aura of magic around him, still not completely retracted after last night, and the Light Lady at his side didn't help the impression. The Aurors outside the Acting Minister's office stared at them both and gripped their wands more tightly.

"They fear me," said Jing-Xi softly. Harry glanced at her. He had never seen the expression on her face that she wore now, as if she were dismayed at their fear. "Why? They must know that I am Light, and I have no reason to hurt them."

"The situation is different in Britain than in China," Harry explained, deliberately casting a muffling spell so that his murmurs would be indistinguishable to the Aurors. "Our people have been hurt and betrayed again and again by powerful wizards in the last few decades. No matter how reassuring you are, they're going to fear you just because you're more powerful than most."

Jing-Xi frowned. "But your example should have taught them otherwise."

Harry shrugged. "I suppose it's hard for a few years of freeing magical creatures and sometimes helping the Ministry to stand up against eleven years of warfare from Voldemort and the knowledge of Dumbledore's betrayal." He turned sharply as the door to the office opened, and Aurora Whitestag put her head out. She was good at control of her facial expressions, Harry thought. No one would know that this meeting was in any way unusual if one simply looked at her face.

"Please, come in, Harry, and Lady—Jing-Xi?" She pronounced the name carefully, and looked delighted when Jing-Xi nodded. "Please do come in!" She stepped back, out of the way, and Harry walked inside with Jing-Xi right beside him. He noticed that Aurora held her breath as if to avoid breathing in the wind that moved the Light Lady's hair constantly and gently around. That saddened him as few other things could have.

_We really are learning fear of magic as a people. If I can kill Voldemort quickly, I may change that, but I do not know what else could._

"_Vates._"

Harry flicked his eyes forward, acknowledging and dismissing Juniper in the same moment. He saw two low stools in front of the Acting Minister's desk. They were meant to sit so far below eye level as to impose a power differential on them. He kept his snarl silent and simply exerted his magic, growing the stools upwards into regular chairs. He saw the Acting Minister open his mouth, then shut it again. Harry sat down, and Jing-Xi remained on her feet only long enough to bow.

"First of all," said Juniper, "I understand that there are two Ladies in the country. Where is the second?"

"Kanerva Stormgale regrets that she could not attend this meeting," said Jing-Xi, in a polished voice. "She was wounded in the battle with the vampire hive queen and must spend some time recovering in the Hogwarts hospital wing."

Harry waited a moment, then started breathing again. It was a far more graceful excuse than Kanerva might have allowed to stand, had she decided to accompany them in wind form and make her presence known.

"Ah, yes, well." Juniper shuffled some paperwork across his desk for a moment, then looked up with a frown. "She is the Dark Lady?"

Jing-Xi nodded.

"I suppose you have read the text of the Ministry's recent edict." Juniper leaned back in his chair. "And you know that Dark Arts are illegal for anyone in the country to practice, even Lord-level wizards. I must ask that Lady Stormgale refrain from using them while she is in the British Isles."

Harry swallowed his laughter. Juniper simply didn't _understand_. Or, more likely, he did, but he didn't care. He would only think that those people who couldn't obey the edict were his enemies, and there was scant loss in their support, even if he had to wait until the end of the war to put them in Tullianum.

But perhaps it was possible to make him understand. Harry still didn't want open warfare with the Ministry if he could avoid it. The tense neutrality they'd maintained so far suited him fine. The only thing he truly regretted was the Ministry's Aurors sitting idle, or only arresting ordinary citizens who used Dark Arts, rather than joining them in their battles. When Juniper had sent him the invitation-cum-command this morning, Harry had known the neutrality was splintered, and they would have to deal with one another head-on.

"Acting Minister," he said. "How much do you understand about the transition that a Dark Lady or Lord goes through when giving herself or himself to the wild Dark?"

"I am pleased to say that I know very little about it," said Juniper stiffly. "Mortals were not meant to understand such things, boy."

Harry nodded. He had expected as much. Scrimgeour had told him once that Juniper believed even Wolfsbane shouldn't be studied, because understanding more about the werewolf curse only increased the risk of corruption from the knowledge.

"The transition takes them away from Light magic," he said. "For many, it makes them incapable of accessing it any longer. That is the case with Lady Stormgale. Even if she could still use Light magic, I doubt she would. She defended Hogsmeade and Hogwarts from the vampire hive queen yesterday using Dark spells. Do you really want her protection to wane or prove useless, sir, because she wasn't allowed to use Dark magic on Britain's shores? Or do you want her to become insulted and strike out at those she thinks responsible for the insult?"

"It is not _necessary_ to use Dark magic in order to win this war," said Juniper stubbornly. "And if we allow one person to use it, then we have taken one step down the road that ended, last time, with suspects tortured rather than brought to trial."

Harry stared into Juniper's eyes. There was a kindred spirit there, after all, one spark of the same fear shared between them. Harry didn't want to indulge his taste for revenge out of fear of what he might become. Juniper didn't want to permit Dark magic in Britain for fear of what the British wizarding world might become.

It softened Harry's voice, and increased his hope that compassion and sheer pragmatism might make their way through Juniper's walls where defiance would not. "Sir. Please. Listen to yourself. It is necessary to use Dark magic to win this war, if only because some of those who fight with you will use it. Would you rather see the war lost for lack of Dark magic, when by permitting those to use it who would use it anyway, you would win? _You_ would not have to use it, nor anyone else sworn to the Order of the Firebird. Allow them to use it, the ones who don't believe in the danger of corruption, and you would be far more likely to win."

Juniper tensed. Harry could see the battle raging in him, and he made his voice yet softer and more coaxing.

"Many people are fleeing to Voldemort rather than surrendering, because they fear what their lives will become under your government. You mean to avoid tyranny, but they see it as tyranny _now_. Reverse the edict, and you will welcome more people than you drive away. Few _want_ to serve Voldemort. They want to serve their magic, to use it to the fullest extent possible. They're only going to him because he _might_ permit that freedom, and they know your new edict won't. Please, sir, reconsider. Can you?"

Juniper turned his head, surprisingly, staring out the enchanted window of his office for a moment. Harry followed his gaze. The window looked out on a view of the Thames, which Harry didn't doubt was at least part of what the real view looked like at that very moment.

"How can I?" Juniper whispered.

"How can you what?" Harry responded at once, pitching his voice to the same level of lowness. "Please, sir, tell me what you need to hear."

"How can I abandon some of my people to darkness, and save others for the Light?" Juniper shook his head, his eyes fastened on the window. "How can I condemn some people to doing things I _know_ are wrong, only because it's expedient?" He turned back to Harry, face haunted. "The Light is an ideal, I know, never to be lived up to completely by us, but we can come nearer to it than this. And I cannot sanction the use of Dark spells when I know that the people using them could have lives that were so much better."

Harry ground his back teeth against the frustration that wanted to rise, and said softly, "Sir, Lady Jing-Xi is of the Light. If you will not listen to what I have to say, will you listen to her?"

Juniper did not nod or shake his head. He simply looked at Jing-Xi. So did Harry.

Jing-Xi's face was calm, and she looked straight ahead, not quite locking eyes with the Acting Minister. "Sir," she said. "I am more than sixty years old. I have lived in many different places in the world, though my home has always been China. I have had friendships with many different Ladies and Lords located in Light or Dark, and some people, like Harry, who are undeclared. And I have had enemies in the same places. What that has taught me is to look, first, to the nature and temper of the human heart involved, not the allegiance it has sworn itself to. There are Dark Ladies who would never sanction the use of torture, because it goes against personal ideals. There are Light Lords who could, and did, sanction the use of child abuse, because they honestly believed it was the right thing to do. Few people _believe_ they are serving evil. Even Lord Riddle does not believe it of himself, though his fear of death has destroyed his reason.

"I say to you, sir, that if your heart is committed to your ideals, you will not drown yourself in darkness because you chose to trust your people, including those who practice Dark Arts. You will not be tainted by corruption if you remain true. And if someone around you is, that is not your fault, not if you did not encourage it. We cannot be responsible for every single response someone else makes. We cannot _know_ what consequences we engender, sometimes. That is why we urge people to live with the consequences of their actions, not prevent them. Preventing them all would require a foresight greater than any of us have—including you, sir."

Harry let out his breath in a soft little sigh. Surely what Jing-Xi said would get through to Juniper. She was of his own allegiance, someone who had made a commitment to the Light her life's work, voluntarily limited her power to a certain set of spells. Surely, this would work.

But Juniper whispered, "I must at least try."

Harry's fists clenched. Juniper didn't appear to notice, though, but simply looked at them with the eyes of a drowning man.

"I see darkness threatening my country. I see shadows creeping out to take the hearts of a good many of our people. I see people giving in to practices they would have hated a generation ago, simply because they get things done more quickly. Am I to put up with that? Am I to really grant that that is happening, simply because I feel helpless to prevent it? I can at least fight."

Harry bowed his head and stood. Juniper would never join them. He had convinced himself this was a worthy fight, even if a hopeless one. You couldn't argue with someone like that. Harry knew, because he had once had that mindset himself. He had thought that his life was worthwhile even though he fully expected to die serving Connor, because with that death he would buy a few more moments of continued existence for his brother.

He wondered how Juniper had restrained himself all these years, pretending to be mentally normal and stable until the point where he could reach power and then unleash his stern ideals. Or had his obsession not grown to this level until Voldemort returned? It was possible, Harry thought. He could have seen their society as Light enough up until now, without the need for his corrective power.

Harry could feel his heart ache in pity, and in unexpected force of sharing, and in frustration and resentment.

But he would not stand aside and let Juniper dictate his actions, or arrest those he had come to love.

"We follow different philosophies, sir," he said. "I hope not to see you on the battlefield, but if that is what must happen, then it will."

"One moment before you go," said Juniper, already sounding confident again, as if arrogance were enough to win a war. _If it were, he would have become King of all the wizarding world already, _Harry thought. "I have heard a rumor that Aurors from foreign countries have come to Britain to serve you. Is that true, _vates_?"

"It is," said Harry, meeting his eyes. "France, Spain, and Portugal, so far. And I have sent letters to other wizarding governments."

Juniper's face tightened. "They should have cleared it with me."

"They decided that you were fighting the war wrong." Harry leaned forward. For the sake of the similarity between them—a similarity he had never expected to exist, much less need to be acknowledged—he would give Juniper this one warning. "They don't accept you as a voice of authority. Your edict against the Dark Arts began it. They don't think that you can win the war this way, and they have a vested interest in my winning it, so that Voldemort does not cross the Channel."

"Not every Minister will send troops to your side," said Juniper, softly, as if it were a threat.

"I don't expect them to," said Harry calmly. If nothing else, he knew he could not count on Austria; they would not feel the need to, since Monika would fight Voldemort if he moved into her territory. And others further away would probably refuse as well, though they might mock Juniper. So long as they did not openly oppose him, Harry didn't think he needed to worry. "But I will pursue this war with the help that's been offered, Acting Minister, and in my own fashion."

"That cannot continue forever," Juniper said.

This was the part of him that Harry didn't understand, the part that seemingly expected Harry to give up or give in because he should owe some kind of ultimate allegiance to Light or the Ministry. And Harry simply smiled, and dealt with that part of Juniper as he had other times before.

"You're right. It will continue until Voldemort is dead, or I am."

He turned and departed from the office, casting another muffling spell. Jing-Xi walked at his side, her face a study in sad wonder. Then she shook her head, and her face returned to normal again.

"Back to Hogwarts?" she asked.

"No," Harry answered. He could feel a kind of twisting sensation in his chest, but he had known from the beginning of this that he would need to go where he was going now sooner or later. It was not fair that Voldemort could attack Muggles and they would have little or no notice as to what was going on. At the very least, Harry could create an advance warning system among them. "You're going back to Hogwarts, since the Pact declared that you couldn't help me in what I was about to do. I'm going to summon a few people to guard me, and then I'm going to Surrey."

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Aurora halted and glanced around, narrowing her eyes in annoyance. _At the very least, if he's going to play games of spies and what not, then he could be on time to the secret meetings he has arranged._

Then a movement ahead of her, in the shadows, reassured her. Aurora drew her wand and cast the binding spells that prevented the speaker from getting anywhere within twenty feet of her, and the spell that would break his wand if he tried to cast a spell of his own. She supposed it wasn't fair to complain about his timing. He was the one who had to come through several dozen guards and wards to get inside the Ministry. She only had to await an owl, and then go, with Juniper's blessing, to a certain place at a certain time.

"My lady," said his voice, soft and half-defeated, the way it always sounded.

"Feldspar." Aurora nodded. "And what information do you bring this time?"

She had hardly been able to believe it when Feldspar Yaxley presented himself to her—he hadn't had an easy time of that either—and claimed that he wanted to betray Voldemort. But he had explained it enough times that Aurora believed him now. He had betrayed his whole family by fleeing away from the Dark Mark's claim during the First War, and that had sent his aunt Indigena into the arms of the Dark Lord and caused irreparable harm. He was trying to make up for it now, especially since Voldemort had called him back but had no interest in doing anything but torturing him. That torture made his hold over Feldspar weaker than it was for the other recalled Death Eaters.

"The man who calls himself my Lord," said Feldspar, touching his left arm where Aurora herself had seen the Dark Mark faded and discolored, "has gathered two other members of my family into his fold."

Aurora caught her breath and stood straighter. Voldemort recruiting any Yaxley was bad news. "What are their names?"

"Sylvan and Oaken," rasped Feldspar. He was often tortured until he coughed up blood, Aurora knew, and then his chest was rarely repaired properly. "They are twins. Distant cousins of mine."

"And what are their powers?" The Yaxley family was well-known for studying obscure branches of magic, and achieving proficiency in arts that no one in the wider wizarding community cared about. Aurora often wished the wider wizarding community had not been _forced_ to care about which Yaxley did what.

"They became interested in werewolves' near invulnerability to magic and many kinds of physical wounds." Feldspar paused to cough again. "They decided to see if they could induce that same invulnerability in themselves. And they did find a way, but, of course, there was a price. Essentially, only one twin exists in our world at a time. The other waits in a different plane beyond him. When the twin in our world is injured, he can retreat into that stronghold, and his brother comes out to fight. And that other plane works to heal their injuries much faster than even a potion. They were content to simply live at Briar-Rise for a long time, but they have come forward now, because all the spells that sustain them are Dark, and they dislike the imputation from the Ministry that merely by existing, they are immoral and illegal."

Aurora shuddered for a moment, and wished bitterly that she had not given in out of weariness and allowed Erasmus to pass that law that made Dark Arts illegal. At least, then, they would not be facing a pair of invulnerable Yaxleys. "Is there anything else you can tell me?"

Feldspar shook his head. "They leave me out of most discussions now, and what I can overhear is getting rarer. I think I will soon die."

"Then why not flee?" This was the center of Aurora's suspicions about Feldspar, which had almost convinced her that he was coming to her on Voldemort's orders. But there was no reason that Voldemort would allow such valuable information to spill into their hands if he knew. And, so far, it had all proven true. They had even foiled an attack on a small Irish village last week, thanks to what Feldspar told her.

Feldspar's lips lifted into a dark smile, and Aurora saw that his teeth were blood-stained, the gums cracked and leaking. "Because of honor," he said. "_Vita desinit, decus permanit._ I forgot that once. I never will again. I am not _allowed_ to forget it again."

Aurora looked at him in silence for a moment. But it was true that that was the Yaxley family motto, and they went to insane lengths to fulfill it, and Feldspar's information had all proven true. What could Voldemort be getting out of this, if Feldspar was a double-crosser? None of the Ministry's information was compromised. Voldemort's attacks had been.

"Stay as safe as you can," she said. "And know that you will have died doing the right thing, if you die. The Ministry is grateful."

Feldspar mutely nodded and blended back into the shadows. Aurora left the small storage room. She did not know how Feldspar slipped in and out of the Ministry, but she did know that, every time, the most prominent guards and spells and wards were subtly changed, with Erasmus using the Unspeakables' help. Feldspar might be their spy, even a useful one, but he was not allowed to compromise their security.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry nodded to the others who had come with him—Snape, Regulus, and Narcissa. "I'm putting you under a Disillusionment Charm," he told them. "She's going to be nervous enough with me there."

"I am coming with you," said Snape.

Harry scowled at him. "You'll intimidate her."

"You should have one wizard in the house with you," said Snape, curling his lip. "In case the Muggles go mad."

Harry sighed. It wasn't worth arguing about. He did cast the Disillusionment Charm over Regulus and Narcissa, however, and then glamours on himself and Snape, so that their robes looked more like Muggle clothes. Snape surveyed the dark shirt and trousers this appeared to give him with deep disapproval.

Then they turned, and Harry took a little breath, and walked down the street that he had last seen on a night he'd been sure Voldemort was trying to kill the people he was now going to see—Privet Drive, in the town of Little Whinging, Surrey.

It still looked much the same as it always had: neat Muggle houses with neat gardens, with exactly the same fences separating neighbor from neighbor and only slight variations in the cars that sat in front of most of them. Had it not been for the twitching curtains that accompanied his and Snape's progress up the street, Harry would have thought the place dead.

He turned in at Number 4, Snape so close behind him Harry could practically feel his guardian's breath on the back of his neck. He knocked on the front door, and heard the sound of loudly stomping feet. That would be his cousin Dudley, coming to answer the door. Harry wondered how Dudley would react to seeing him.

Not well, it appeared. Dudley tore open the door, stared at him and Snape, let out a long wail, and shut it.

Harry blinked, and knocked again. This time, he heard his aunt's voice, demanding to know why Dudley hadn't answered the door. Dudley wailed back, "It's Harry at the door, Mum!"

There was a long pause at that. Remembering how much reason Petunia had to hate Lily, Harry winced at the thoughts that were probably going through her head. But he remained firm. Petunia was his best chance for establishing a network that would warn the families of magical people that they could be at risk from Voldemort. If she refused that role, then she would at least know of the danger.

At last, heavier footsteps than should be the case for a woman so thin crossed the floor towards them, and then Petunia opened the door and stood looking at them. She looked askance at Snape, but, to Harry's secret awe, didn't spend a long time on him. She stared down at Harry instead, and said, "You."

"Me," Harry agreed. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "May we come in, Aunt Petunia?"

He could see his aunt glancing up and down the street, as if judging what would happen should she be seen letting freaks into her house against what would happen should she be seen conversing with freaks on the front step. In the end, she jerked her head and said shortly, "Come in."

Snape snorted under his breath, and snorted again when they reached the entrance hall, crowded with pictures of Petunia, Dudley, and Petunia's dead husband, Vernon. Harry's cousin cautiously watched them around the corner. Harry wondered if he had lost weight since the last time he'd seen him, and then had to shake his head. He really couldn't tell.

"What do you want?" Petunia demanded, crossing her arms.

Harry forced himself to focus on her, and remember more things about her than just the angry, poisonous speech she'd made about Lily last time, and how much she resented losing her sister to the magical world. Yes, it wasn't fair that Lily had been born a witch and corrupted by Dumbledore, but the fact remained that Petunia and Dudley were Harry's Muggle family, and Voldemort could attack because of that.

"The Dark Lord is attacking again," he said quietly. "Voldemort, the wizard whom I thought was trying to kill you last time. The one who gave me this." He lifted his fringe to display his scar. He heard Dudley make a soft noise of fear, but Petunia's stare didn't waver. "He hasn't started systematic attacks on Muggles, but it's only a matter of time."

"Why should we believe this threat is any more real than the last one was?" Petunia asked, frowning at him.

"Because he's made one attack in the Muggle world," said Harry quietly. "A Muggle family in London was found torn apart and drained of blood." He watched Petunia's face drain of blood in turn, and her hands clenched on the towel she held; she must have been washing dishes when they interrupted. "That was him. Vampires."

"_Vampires_?" Dudley squeaked.

Petunia closed her eyes. "And you think he might send vampires after us?"

"Vampires, or something else. He hates Muggle families that produce wizards and witches." Harry took a step forward. "I wanted to warn you. I don't know if you'll think it best to flee the country, or—I can offer you sanctuary in one of the safehouses I'm establishing, under the protection of magic—"

"_No_," said Petunia flatly. "I'm not—I refuse to go anywhere near you people. Anywhere nearer than necessary, at least."

Harry nodded. He had half-expected that. He put up a hand instinctively to restrain Snape, who fell silent with a glare that Harry could practically feel flaying his neck. "Then I was hoping that you could help me pass the word to other families who might be at risk because their sons or daughters attend Hogwarts, or because they have siblings and cousins in the magical world." He touched his pocket. "I have a list of them who live in Surrey. At the least, it would be an early warning system, in case anything strange started happening. And there are Muggle ways of protecting yourself, I know. Snap a wizard's wand, and he's practically useless, most of the time."

Petunia laughed. It was an ugly sound. "Why would I want to become involved in this?"

"I didn't think you would," said Harry. "But other people are in danger too, Aunt Petunia. People who, just like you, didn't ask to have a witch or wizard born into the family. It's no fault of their own, but Voldemort will treat them like it's their fault."

His aunt looked at him closely. "Why would you want to open your world up to us like this? My parents had to sign a document saying they wouldn't talk about it, and I had a hex cast on me so that I couldn't even say my sister was a witch to anyone who didn't already know. Not even as an insult."

"You can talk to people who know," said Harry. "And, well, the magical government _doesn't_ want me to open up our world like this. But I think the most likely targets do deserve to know."

"That family who died," said Petunia. "Did they have wizards or witches attached to them?"

Harry shook his head. "Not that I know of. They were simply chosen as targets to make me run away from the bigger battle I was fighting. It was werewolves who defeated the vampires."

"_Werewolves_?" Dudley interjected.

"Hush, Dudley, Mummy will tell you later," said Petunia absently. She was studying Harry with eyes so narrow they almost vanished, by now. "From what I remember, the magical government doesn't love werewolves, either."

"Not so much," Harry said dryly. Snape snorted again.

Petunia flicked a glance at him, but otherwise did a simply marvelous job of ignoring him. "Setting yourself up as savior of the downtrodden, are you?"

"I've already been set up that way, thanks to Lily and Voldemort and a prophecy," said Harry. "And yes, I will do what I can. But I know almost nothing about the Muggle world, and you're one of the few people in it with a reason to listen to me. If you don't want to do this, I understand completely. But I wanted to bring the proposal to you, and see if you would agree. Warn you, and give you a means of contacting me, so that if Death Eaters did attack you, then you could call for magical help."

Petunia's eyes widened again. "So you would actually—help"

"Of course," said Harry, wondering what she took him for. _Lily's son, probably, or a wizard. Neither of which she has reasons to expect good out of. _"But I didn't know if it would be possible, especially if you agreed to go into hiding. You still haven't said that you'll do it, after all." He pulled an amulet from his pocket. It was modeled on the one Rita Skeeter had given him, which he could squeeze if he had a story for her and wanted to summon her. "This is what you would squeeze if there was trouble. I can deliver a few more to you for other families."

Petunia shut her eyes and bowed her head. Harry waited. Snape started to say something. Harry pinched him.

Then Petunia looked up. "The magical world is always going to be trouble for us," she said harshly. "But at least we stand some chance of helping decent people who didn't _ask_ to have magical children." She held out her hand.

Harry passed her the amulet and the list of names of Muggleborns' families in Surrey, never forsaking eye contact. He couldn't help feeling that, prejudices and all, Petunia was a better person than his mother in many ways.

Petunia nodded at him once she read the list of names, as if they were concluding a business transaction. "And all these people already know about the wizarding world, of course? No one's had their memory taken?"

"No one," Harry confirmed. He knew that had happened a few times in the past—in cases where Muggle parents refused to let a magical child go to Hogwarts who wanted to attend, they were sometimes _Obliviated_ and the child taken anyway, perhaps given to a childless wizarding family—but there had been no record of it happening during Dumbledore's term as Headmaster. _Perhaps his focus on me prevented him from stooping to certain levels._

"Good." Petunia nodded at him tightly. "At least, if you insist on having a connection to us, you can make up for what Lily did to me."

Harry nodded back, not taking offense. He was never going to be lovingly close to his aunt and cousin, and it _was_ unfair that Lily had grown so apart from her sister. At least he might help save their lives. "Goodbye, Aunt Petunia. And thank you."

They left. Snape began to speak as soon as they were down the walk. "That _odious_ woman—"

"You're only saying that because she wasn't afraid of you," Harry pointed out, feeling light and almost happy as he tilted his head back and closed his eyes. "She—"

"_Harry!_"

Regulus's voice came from under the Disillusionment Charm to his right. Harry spun, one hand flying up, expecting to see Voldemort himself floating and cackling at the end of the path up to the front door.

Instead, he saw Evan Rosier standing there, smiling, hands clasped around an object in front of him. If it hadn't been full sunlight, Harry might have mistaken it for something else. That wasn't possible, though, not when the sun gleamed on the gold and Rosier's hands were ostentatiously arranged to display the cup's handles, shaped like badgers.

_Hufflepuff's cup. The cup Voldemort was holding. That's a Horcrux._

Harry sprang forward, but Rosier simply laughed at him, softly, and then vanished with a sharp _pop_ of Apparition. Harry stopped running, twisting to the side to avoid Snape, and swore under his breath.

_I don't think Voldemort would have allowed a Horcrux to get away from him like that. Rosier stole it, then. How, I don't know, but I think I know why. He did it to mess with both me and Voldemort._

_Rosier's back in the game. And he's got a powerful playing piece. _

_And Merlin knows how I'm going to get it away from him._


	21. Intermission: Poison

**Intermission: Poison**

"The formula did not survive the transition."

Indigena winced. If she heard the words one more time, she thought she would go mad. But since she was the one her Lord had told off to tend Adalrico, she would have to hear them at least several times more.

Cautiously, she opened the door of the small holding cell—her Lord had constructed stone portals between the rooms once he had enough Death Eaters near him to work magic—and stepped inside. Adalrico lay slumped against the far wall, on what had started out as a pallet but was now more like a shredded mess of straw and feathers. Indigena sighed, then put down the basin of water she carried and shook out the cloth draped over her arm.

"Adalrico," she said.

The man shivered and tried to curl in on himself. Indigena took a deep breath and ignored the shimmer of blood on his shoulders, because if she did not then she would begin to think about the fact that one reason her Lord had tortured him so badly was his anger at her over the failure of the hive queen's attack.

"I'm going to clean your wounds," said Indigena. "Our Lord has forbidden healing spells, but he doesn't want you to sicken from the infection." She patted her knee as she would for a dog and clucked her tongue, wondering if non-verbal signals would work better for him than words. The only person she had ever truly spent time around in a state of weakness was her Lord, and his illness had been different—drifting in his own mind as he tried to establish connections with his followers' Marks again, not injuries. Indigena felt more than half helpless, and she hated feeling that way.

Adalrico peeked up at her. Indigena winced. Something essential was missing from his eyes, some sanity that her Lord had broken or buried. "The formula did not survive the transition," he whispered to her.

"I know," Indigena whispered back. "Come here."

Adalrico stood, slowly, and helped himself towards her with a hand on the wall. Indigena actually thought that was a hopeful sign. If he wasn't crawling like an animal, then he wasn't entirely broken.

She carefully dipped the cloth in the water and ran it over the marks on his shoulders—marks left not by whips or blades or flames or pain curses, but by teeth. Indigena had not seen what her Lord had done to him. No one had. But they'd all _heard_ it, the sounds of teeth opening and closing and crushing flesh, and the screaming.

"The formula did not survive the transition," Adalrico whispered again, and then he fell asleep under her hands.

Indigena had to roll him over several times, so that she could reach all the bites, but in time she thought she'd cleaned them well, washing out the dirt and the straw he'd lain on. As she worked over him, she tried to hold back the uncomfortable sensation that most of this was her fault.

It was one thing when she could disassociate herself from the pain around her by knowing she caused none of it, except for Feldspar's entirely justified squirming on a mental hook he'd baited himself. It was another thing to be sure that part of the reason Adalrico's wounds were so bad was because of her, and not only her failure. When she'd come back from the attack, she'd advised her Lord to use the Meleager's Fire potion on Peridot at once. He had.

And found it could not be done.

The variation of the potion that Adalrico had brewed and smeared on the letter so that Peridot would absorb it through her skin hadn't survived the flight by owl or the smearing. When her Lord had examined his memories of Snape's creation of the potion more thoroughly, he'd discovered that it needed to be ingested, not absorbed. It would have worked only if Peridot had licked her fingers thoroughly after reading Indigena's letter.

So that hold over her sister was gone, and Voldemort's wrath had been terrible to behold. Or hear.

Indigena wished more strongly than ever, now, that her nephew had not betrayed the family honor, and she could have refused her Lord's service. But regretting what had gone before never grew a rose. She gently arranged Adalrico in a sitting position, and piled some of the dirt from the walls around his torso to hold him up, so that hopefully he wouldn't sag over again and get earth in the wounds.

"Cousin."

Indigena stiffened and turned, nodding reluctantly to the man—men—who waited in the doorway. "Sylvan."

The Yaxley twin who occupied their plane of existence right now nodded and smiled, as if happy that she had his name right, at least. He had dark brown hair, the color of mahogany, and brilliant green eyes. Tremors and ripples of light danced about him, signaling that Oaken would be arriving in an hour or a bit more to take his place. "Our Lord wants to see you now."

Sighing, Indigena gathered up the cloth and the basin and followed Sylvan out the door. He talked quietly as they made their way down the tunnel, about the Ministry's latest foolishness of trying to take properties away from Dark pureblood families to "keep an eye" on what they were doing with them. Indigena wished irritably that Sylvan were more hateful. Instead, he seemed intent on easing her pain over Adalrico. Oaken was a bit quieter, but not that different from his twin.

Sylvan left her outside Voldemort's throne room, with a little pat on her shoulder. Indigena straightened her spine and strode into the room.

She found the Dark Lord sitting with his hands clasped around a wide, clear, oddly-shaped vial. Indigena eyed it cautiously. The bottom was almost flat, but the sides were sharply curved, and in the vial sloshed a deep purple liquid that resembled the poison Indigena knew Snape had brewed and used in the attack on the Headmistress.

"My own," said her Lord, and from the sound of his voice he was in a much better mood. "Adalrico did one useful thing before I punished him. He created a variation of Severus's poison that can be combined with the incantation for the flesh-devouring rain I have shown you. When _this_ rain falls from the sky, it will carry not only foulness but death with it, to both earth and humans."

Indigena knew without asking that she would be the one responsible for creating the storm. Her Lord could not yet risk himself in open battle, and the others were not trusted enough for it.

She accepted the vial, watching as the potion inside shimmered and slithered like liquid amethyst. "How wide a storm should I create, my Lord? And where?"

Voldemort began to explain. Indigena listened, and with each word she felt as if she were standing at the edge of a vast well, watching any chance of still behaving honorably sinking out of sight in a lowered bucket.

_But true honor is fulfilling one's promises. I know that. I must stay true to what I said I would do._

_Vita desinit, decus permanit._


	22. Storm Raiser

**Warning: Gore. **

**Chapter Sixteen: Storm-Raiser**

Harry dropped to one knee as the spell crackled past overhead, and looked briefly over his shoulder to see that it had made a smoking dent in the wood. He was impressed. Draco hadn't been able to manage that strong a _Cremo_ last year, and not only because of the wards that littered the Room of Requirement when it was transformed like this and prevented any consequences of a spell from being too damaging.

"Not that powerful, are you, Harry, if you can't even block a spell that simple?" Draco crowed, and started to try again.

Harry raised an eyebrow and deflected his next hex with a Shield Charm. "I usually use wandless magic, Draco, and it's rarely confined to specific spells anymore," he said.

"Then you should try some." Draco was dancing, panting and sweating, his face flushed and glowing, his hair sticking to his cheeks. Harry loved watching him like this. Draco often insisted that Harry relax and let go of his emotions, but the times he followed his own advice were rare. And since he shone with joy now instead of anger, he looked even better. "Come on, Harry, use some spells!"

Harry nodded a bit. "As you wish. _Levicorpus._"

Draco flipped over and hung upside down in midair. Harry grinned as he dropped his wand from the shock, then stood and sauntered towards him.

"Now, now, Draco," he said. "You shouldn't allow yourself to be so distracted. What would happen if you faced a Death Eater and he used this spell?" He shook his head and picked up Draco's wand, which was warm in his hand from both the unfamiliar core and the sweat that had coated Draco's hand. "He could take your wand and bring you to the Dark Lord like this."

Draco, his robes falling around his face, glared. "I thought we were practicing so that I could get better," he muttered.

"And you are," said Harry. "Better, I mean. And we were practicing for that reason. But this is a spell someone _could_ use against you. Snape invented it, but most people in Hogwarts knew it by his fifth year, he said. A simple but effective trick if you aren't expecting it." He ended the spell, but used the air to gently cradle Draco and set him on his feet. "Now you're expecting it, and the next time you can avoid it." He tossed the wand back to Draco.

"Does that mean that you think I'm good enough to be in battle beside you the next time you go?" Draco pushed his hair out of the way, and straightened his robes, this time trying to hide a flush of embarrassment.

"It depends on the battle," said Harry quietly, as he always did whenever Draco posed questions like this.

After the battle with the vampire queen, Kanerva had remarked in Draco's presence—not that Harry thought that made a great deal of difference to her, as she would have said what she believed regardless of who was there—that she thought he should not accompany Harry to battle, as he was only a distraction and could not help. Draco had erupted, first in ranting that simply made Kanerva stare at him and turn into wind, then into vows that he would show Harry's allies he was every bit Harry's equal. Harry had tried to calm him down, to explain that, in this case, spells and his possession gift hadn't helped, and that _he_, too, had been taken off-guard by the queen's surge of lust, but Draco wouldn't hear of it. He went away to study obsessively instead, and to attend some of the dueling sessions that went on throughout the castle, even if he did have to learn from a Weasley. Syrinx, for a time, had nearly been run off her feet trying to keep up with him.

And it showed, Harry had to admit. Draco was quicker with his wand now, because he was facing adults who were determined to defend their homes, who knew spells already that they could combine in unusual ways with the new ones, and who didn't hold back for fear of hurting someone they knew. He would be a great asset when they faced wizards who held wands in battle.

Unfortunately, Harry had no idea what the next battle would be like, and thus he couldn't say for certain whether Draco's new skills would come in handy.

"But you wouldn't hold me back?" Draco pressed now.

Harry shook his head. "For the same reason I didn't hold you back in the vampire battle, Draco. It would be a violation of your free will."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Merlin, Harry, don't knock me down with your enthusiasm to have me beside you."

Harry turned abruptly. Draco jumped back and stood watching him warily.

As well he might. Harry had been struck with a new idea. If Draco would not believe him so far, because Harry had been too gentle, then he might believe a blunt statement.

"I do want you there," Harry said, intensely enough that Draco actually flushed again. "I will always want you there. But the way Voldemort fights from now on might not always permit it, Draco. He fought with Death Eaters in the Woodhouse and the Midsummer battles. But he fought mentally when he took control of Snape's Dark Mark, and so far he's used proxies that are too powerful for most magical creatures to fight, never mind wizards who just turned seventeen. It took Jing-Xi _and_ Kanerva _and_ me to defeat the hive queen. Your not being able to help equally in that kind of battle has nothing to do with training or my wanting you there, and everything to do with magical strength. There will be some things that you just _can't_ do, because you're not Lord-level. Connor and Snape can't do them, either. That doesn't mean I value any of you any less. It just means that I don't need everyone in my life to be a Lord."

Draco narrowed his eyes and swallowed, flushing further. It was a moment before he spoke. Harry watched him, perfectly willing to wait. If what he said got through to Draco and made him both stop blaming himself and blaming Harry, then waiting was all to the good.

"I made a vow once," Draco whispered. "That I wasn't going to be the suffering little wife, that I would come with you and not be left behind to wait for you like a good little boy."

"And you think that's what happens to Connor?" Harry asked steadily. "Or Regulus? Or, Merlin forbid you ever say this to his face, Snape?"

Draco shook his head impatiently and took a step forward. "I know it doesn't. But their situation is different, Harry. They can have roles in relation to you that aren't exactly _equal_. Connor seems to have accepted his rather well," he added, with a touch of malice. "But I'm your lover. I want sunlight love. I want to be as equal to you as I can, in as many aspects of our life as I can. Magical strength isn't one of those planes, but presence in battle is."

"Draco," Harry whispered, and leaned forward to kiss him. When he drew back, Draco looked a bit dazed, which was flattering. "I promise you, I love you no less, and I don't think you're weak, and there's no saying that I _need_ to leave you behind next time. Voldemort might not ever attack with a hive queen again, though I think he will if he can find one willing to risk herself for a nesting site now. But if your presence there distracts me and makes me less than equal to my enemies, surely that's a reason to remain behind?"

"I fear what it would mean," Draco murmured, controlling himself rather than shouting. Harry was reluctantly impressed, despite its meaning he could lose the argument. "What if it started a trend of your leaving me behind just because you were afraid, not because I would limit you? I'm afraid it would. You've always been a bit too protective of me, Harry, to the point of disdaining protection for yourself."

"And I am trying to get over that," Harry said. "I _am_. But you also know that someone seizes you and I freeze, Draco. That has to be taken into consideration. Ignoring it doesn't make us equals. It makes us both stubborn children."

Draco bit his lip and opened his mouth to argue back. Harry waited, curious to hear what he would say.

He never did hear it, or, at least, not that exact variation of the argument.

Alarms in his head, linked to the wards on Hogwarts, went mad. Harry staggered back, lifting his hands to his ears even though the sounds weren't physical and wouldn't be blocked out that way. He felt Draco catch his arm, and saw his lips move, but couldn't make out anything save the worried expression on his face.

Harry shook his head and tore free, focusing on the shrill clanging so that he would know where the wards had been violated. The grounds, it seemed. Someone was approaching the castle from the front, from the direction of the Hogsmeade road.

He frowned as he began to run. _Stupid place for an attack. They should at least have come through the Forbidden Forest, and then they'd have some cover._

Of course, Voldemort did not always do intelligent things. And if he had brought another hive queen, the cover or lack of it would not matter.

He tapped his wrist as he ran for the doors, speaking to McGonagall. The ward alarms were finally beginning to die, now that they'd made enough noise to _wake _the dead. "You've felt the breach, Madam?"

"Not a breach." McGonagall's voice was strained enough to deepen Harry's frown. "Harry, they have—a hostage on the lawn. Two hostages, as a matter of fact. One of them is Xavier Deschamps, the French Auror leader." She drew a deep breath. "The other is Hawthorn Parkinson."

It didn't take Harry long to make the connection.

Tonight was the full moon.

And what would torment Hawthorn more than killing someone else as a werewolf without Wolfsbane? Which Voldemort would never have bothered to give her, of course.

"_Shit_," Harry breathed, and changed his direction. The Room of Requirement was closer to the Tower battlements than the entrance doors. He would step out of the school and see what he could from the top.

Draco appeared beside him, and then Owen, and then Michael. Harry fought not to hiss that _he_ should have been with his mother and little sister. This was more important.

"What is it, Harry?" Draco asked.

"Hawthorn Parkinson is out there without Wolfsbane," said Harry shortly, and then the steps to the Astronomy Tower were in front of him. He began to leap up them, touching his wrist to call on Laura Gloryflower. The majority of their winged horses were patrolling Cobley-by-the-Sea, the one safehouse that had been deemed secure enough to inhabit as yet. "Laura? Can you hear me?"

"My Lord?" Her voice was startled, hence the slip-up in the title. Harry gritted his teeth and also ignored that. _More important things in heaven and earth…_

"How soon can your horses get here?" he asked. "I'd like to have as many as possible circle in behind Hogwarts and come in for an aerial attack." It was the safest way he knew to take on a wild werewolf. The thestrals were closer, but Harry had no way to reach them or command them to rise from the Forest, not with Hawthorn, Xavier, and whichever Death Eaters had captured them between the castle and the Forest.

"A detachment of them is coming," said Laura. "My nephew Zephyr leads them. I sent them when it seemed as though there was little danger around the safehouse tonight. They may be there in an hour."

_Not enough time, _Harry thought, as he came out on the top of the Tower and looked to the east. The sky was quivering with sunset, quivering with moonrise. He nodded, even though Laura couldn't see him. "Thank you."

"Is it in time?" Laura asked anxiously.

"It won't be."

"I could have them land, my lord, and Apparate the horses—"

"Could you?" Harry let out a harsh breath. "Can they reappear outside Hogsmeade, so that they'll have a clear landing area to rise from?"

"I'll tell Zephyr, _vates_." Laura sounded a bit more collected now.

"Thank you," Harry murmured, and cut the communication spell. The Gloryflower horses were his best chance, really. Jing-Xi was at home in China, attending to trouble there, and Kanerva had turned into the wind that morning and was blowing who-knew-where. There was no way of communicating with the hippogriffs or the thestrals. Their brooms were on the Quidditch Pitch, out beyond the front grounds, and the Death Eaters could easily destroy them as they flew. And Harry would rather that if anyone went in on foot against a wild werewolf whom he could not stand by and see hurt, it were him.

Then, at last, he looked.

Two masked and hooded Death Eaters he didn't recognize from their body shapes held Xavier. Harry thought he would have recognized _him_ even without McGonagall's more specific information from the wards. The way he stood, his head half-lifted as though he appreciated his enemies' efforts at intimidation but would not allow them to affect him, was unmistakable.

In front of Xavier, closer to the castle, stood a man whose shape blurred and wavered with the form of powerful magic. Harry thought it was a glamour at first, but then he recognized some of the spells that maintained the blurring and wavering. He hissed in disgust. _Sacrificial magic. Blood magic._

That man held a silver chain, and at the end of it crouched Hawthorn, naked, the chain wrapped around her neck. Harry felt a clear rage he hadn't known he carried spring up in him at the sight of her, especially when the Death Eater called up to him, cheerful and unconcerned.

"Greetings, _vates!_ My name, currently, at least, is Sylvan Yaxley. I'm sure you can see the situation here. We'll turn a wild werewolf loose on your ally if you don't come down and accompany us quietly to our Lord."

"I've refused before, and I will again," Harry answered, casting _Sonorus_ so that his voice rang out from the Tower top. Sylvan, who'd been facing the front doors, started and stepped back to look at him. Harry eyed the eastern sky again, and nodded. _Allies who can fly are best. People Apparating and coming in on foot wouldn't get here before the moon rose, anyway. _"These are the tactics of a bully. I will not surrender to them, and Voldemort knows that."

"Truthfully, my Lord does," said Sylvan, with a nod. "He did think you would enjoy the show, though."

Hawthorn howled.

Harry felt his heartbeat pick up at the sound. It wasn't like the controlled—well, relatively—sounds that werewolves under the influence of Wolfsbane made. This was the wild noise he hadn't heard in almost two years, since Fenrir Greyback died. Black and mourning and yearning for blood, it went ringing up the sky, and told everything less powerful to run and hide its head.

And it was coming from Hawthorn's throat. Harry barely dared think what she would make of that in a human mindset, or what Pansy would have.

Sylvan unhooked the silver chain from Hawthorn's neck, and leaped back. At the same moment, the Death Eaters holding Xavier whirled out of the way and drew silver blades—the better to be prepared if the werewolf attacked them, Harry was sure.

Hawthorn's spine rippled. Harry could see the pale fawn fur flooding across her, obscuring her features and crooking her legs. She howled again and again, madder and madder, as her head shoved itself into shape and a tail sprang from her spine. Harry saw slashes of dirt appear in the grass as the great paws flailed and tore.

He didn't realize he'd taken a step forward, to the edge of the battlements, until Draco's hand closed on his right shoulder and Owen's on his left.

Xavier simply drew his wand, as if he knew running would do no good, as if he had always wanted to test his magic against a werewolf.

Hawthorn started forward.

And moonlight flashed off the silver sides of the Gloryflower horses as a first detachment came winging in over the trees and drove straight for Hawthorn and Xavier, their leader calling out a spell and swinging what looked like a whip of light.

Hawthorn sprang aside from the whip, impossibly fast, impossibly graceful, and then turned and whirled upward. The horse—bearing Zephyr Gloryflower, Harry assumed—barely got out of the way in time. It did turn and huff out a blast of cold air that might have frozen Hawthorn's fur if it touched her, but it did not touch her. She landed on the other side with a mouthful of dirt and rose again, spitting and snarling, the worse-tempered for not catching anything.

Harry saw two horses come down in a beautiful formation, their readers leaning wide from their backs, and snatch up Xavier from the ground. The French wizard moved as if he'd been trained for this, curling up his legs so that he didn't swing or dangle beneath the riders, and then slid onto the back of one horse when the second rider handed him off. In moments, they were far too high for a werewolf to leap, and thus out of danger.

Hawthorn simply snarled at the loss of easy prey, eyed the two Death Eaters with silver blades, and charged Sylvan Yaxley.

Even before she reached him, Harry knew she could not hurt him. That sacrificial blood magic, Lazuli had told him, had been specifically guaranteed to insure vulnerability. Her paw screamed through the air and stopped an inch away from him, and when Hawthorn resorted to teeth, her jaws clanged off his robes as if they were made of metal. That made the werewolf scream, a sound that caused Harry to shiver, and then she swung around and made for the Forbidden Forest.

Harry closed his eyes and shook his head. The thought of the carnage a wild werewolf could cause there…

And he was currently the only one in the castle with the magic to face her, at least without a high chance of getting infected or killed—or killing Hawthorn, which would violate his family alliance oath.

He made the decision to Apparate, though it tugged and tore at some of the castle's anti-Apparition wards. He would make that up to McGonagall later. Right now, wards were less important than lives.

He heard Owen's and Draco's cries cut off as he leaped, and then he was standing on the moonlit grass, the trees close at his back, watching Hawthorn as she raced towards him.

She was not as large as Fenrir Greyback had been, but that was not saying much, especially as Harry had never seen her when she wasn't under the influence of Wolfsbane. Her amber eyes seemed twice as large as they ever had, pools that reflected the moon back. Constant sounds came from her, like something thrashing in nets, snarls and yelps and growls and snaps and screams. She saw him and dropped, belly practically to the ground, before she leaped.

Harry whirled out of the way, even as he saw the werewolf land and turn to stare at her left foreleg with a whimper.

Harry swallowed. A shallow, bloody wound had opened on that foreleg, and he knew where it came from. Hawthorn had sworn a family alliance oath never to attack him or Connor. Of course, the werewolf instincts had made her do it anyway, but it seemed that the oath held even when she changed forms.

The same oath made it impossible for Harry to hurt her. But he could keep her away from the magical creatures in the Forest, and he could do his damnedest to remove the hold Voldemort had on her mind. It had been partly for her importance to him that Voldemort had targeted her, after all, and partly for that same importance that other horrible things had happened to her, like the imprisonment in Tullianum.

The werewolf had either felt the alliance oath's magic or was wary of an enemy who had hurt her from a distance in no manner she could discern. She still snarled, but the amber eyes fastened on him had a shred of what Harry supposed could be called curiosity.

"Hawthorn," Harry said quietly, hoping against hope that this might get through to her, or at least leave the shadow of an echo in her mind when she awoke and went back to being human. "Hawthorn Parkinson."

She whined, as if she disliked the name, and then licked at the wound on her foreleg, never moving her eyes from him. Harry watched taut, controlled power vibrate and shimmer through her muscles. The wound was bigger now, indicating she hadn't given up on the notion of attacking him. Harry tried to control his breathing. She might bleed to death before his eyes as long as he was here, but let him vanish and she would ravage the Forest.

And letting his other allies destroy her would almost certainly make _him_ bleed to death, for such a betrayal of the Parkinson family.

"Hawthorn," Harry said softly. "Do you remember me? Can you feel me?" He hesitated, then reached out and focused on the web that clouded her mind and roused the beast inside the pureblood witch on each night of the full moon. It was seething now, a dark wall of water and fire that wrapped around the vulnerable human emotions and entirely drowned them. Harry winced. Its color was black-red, like old blood and new blood mixed, or magma simmering beneath a crust of dried lava. And it felt him, and it nearly lashed to drive her forward.

Harry struck at the central knot of the web, trying something he'd never done before: to fully unbind someone else from being a werewolf.

The web screamed. For a moment, Hawthorn tossed as contradictory emotions lashed through her. Harry could feel the web's desire to kill, its fear of him, Hawthorn's human shame and disgust at what she had become, and the knowledge, instinctive to both wolf and witch, that going against him now would make its body bleed. A storm tore through her, and Harry could not help.

Pain seared his left arm. Harry glanced down, and knew his alliance scar was opening. He had caused too much pain to Hawthorn, and the oath was treating it as a betrayal.

He swallowed, and began to sing. He didn't know if the phoenix voice stood a chance of soothing the werewolf, but at the least it might give the werewolf something to focus on and rescue Hawthorn from mental confusion.

It did. The web coalesced in its hatred of the phoenix, similar to but deeper than its hatred of Harry _vates_, and the amber eyes glittered dangerously. Still it did not move forward, though; Harry thought the web now understood, in a dim way, the limitations of Hawthorn's alliance oath. Instead, the wolf turned and charged into the Forest.

Harry's scar had stopped bleeding. He filled his limbs with magic that would let him keep up with Hawthorn, and ran after her.

As he went, he whistled out warnings, projecting them frantically through the warbles of the phoenix song, doing his best to send the Many snakes to their burrows, the centaurs into the protection of their hollow, the thestrals into the air. He did not want anyone to come to harm because of Hawthorn, even as he could not hurt her.

The werewolf howled again, and leaped over a leaning trunk between two stumps, and was lost to sight for a moment. Harry heard jaws clamp down, and a short scream, and a triumphant cry that signaled blood shed. He circled the stumps heavily, panting, wondering what she had killed.

It was a hare, luckily, and not a magical creature, but Harry could only tell that from the pale fur scattered about. Already Hawthorn had so mangled the poor thing's body that its main color was black and red. She snarled at him now, deep-chested, and crouched over the hare as if thinking he would take her meal away. She ate it with two bites of the huge jaws, and ran on into the Forest.

Harry ducked after her, trying to run through his choices in his head. He couldn't hurt Hawthorn or allow anyone else to hurt her. He might be able to keep her occupied for the rest of the night and keep her away from magical creature settlements, but he doubted it. And the Gloryflower horses he had been counting on not only to rescue Xavier but to keep Hawthorn occupied couldn't attack from above, given all the tree branches in the way.

_It will have to be a cage._

Harry took a deep breath and began to pull magic from himself, winding it into his hands, until they glowed like a sun and the light struck shadows from the trees and revealed Hawthorn's leaping hindquarters and tail. He formed the image of a cage in his mind that would neither hurt Hawthorn nor allow her to be hurt, and then lifted his hands and breathed on them.

The light struck forward, shaped like lightning bolts but traveling even faster, and a moment later Harry heard a howl that abruptly cut off. He lurched around a log, tripped over a root, and had to catch himself, panting. So much magic had gone into the creation of the cage that he was left without the ability to pass mistily through obstacles.

Then he rounded the next tree and saw it.

The cage had taken form between the side of a hill and three trees, oaks sturdy enough to bear a great deal of damage. It shone like dawn, and seemed to be made of clouds that had decided to linger on earth. Now and then a flash of movement showed from inside it, Hawthorn hurling herself against the sides or lashing a paw through, but the material simply regrew itself wherever she managed to punch a hole, rather like shadows. The top was enclosed with a white cover, since Harry knew how high werewolves could jump.

It would hold her. And no one less than Voldemort himself, or Kanerva or Jing-Xi, was getting through it before dawn.

Harry paused a moment, panting hard, to recover, and phoenix song warbled from his wrist. "What is it?" Harry asked, tapping his left hand to release the spell. Whatever it was, it could not be harder than this; three Death Eaters, even one powerful in sacrificial magic, were hardly a challenge for Hogwarts's wards.

"The situation at Hogwarts was only a distraction, I fear, my lord," said Laura tightly. "There is a rain falling in Cornwall that is eating everything alive—earth, stone, trees. Every attempt we've made to stop it is futile."

Harry didn't waste time berating himself or asking for more details, because there _was_ no time. He pictured Cobley-by-the-Sea and Apparated.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

He reappeared in the middle of a room set aside for Apparition, but already crowded with several of the witches and wizards who had chosen to enter the Black house as a sanctuary. They backed up when they saw him and stared at him, eyes wide.

"What are you doing here?" someone asked at last, when a breathless moment had passed during which they seemed to expect him to raise the roof or strike at them all with fire.

"Trying to stop the rain," said Harry. He could hear it now, the sharp _pock-pock-pock_ of drops hitting the outside of the house. If it could eat through stone, he could see why the people inside the safehouse were panicking. It would reach them, if not soon. Apparating elsewhere was not the answer, however. They would only be at risk from Voldemort in the outside world again. Harry was sure that he had chosen Cornwall as the site of his attack because he had heard rumors of the safehouse and wanted to make other people feel they were never safe anywhere. "_Stay here. _Unless it's already begun to flood the house." He looked towards a woman near him who was wide-eyed, but seemed to be the calmest of those present.

She swallowed. "No, _vates_," she said. "I haven't heard anyone say that they've seen that."

Harry nodded, and strode to the window carved in the wall and covered with a heavy shimmer of wards, peering outside into the darkness.

He saw the rain and its consequences almost at once. The drops were heavier than they should be, and colored a vivid purple that reminded Harry of the poison Snape had used on McGonagall; it wouldn't surprise him if Voldemort had managed to brew the potion and base the rain on that, actually. The drops impacted on the stone with hissing sounds, and ate holes in it like acid, holes which grew a little deeper each time. Where a rare plant grew on the rocks, such as moss or lichen, the rain had reduced it to little more than a black, smoking mess. There were larger shapes that Harry thought were gulls and other animals, at once burned and poisoned by the rain, roasted nearly black.

"How long since this started?" he asked.

The witch who had spoken before swallowed with a click of her throat and said, "For ten minutes now, _vates_."

_Shit. All this damage in ten minutes. Shit._

Harry didn't even want to think about the wizards—and surely the Muggles—who weren't under shelter. If Voldemort wanted to force the exposure of the magical world to the Muggles, he could hardly have chosen a better way. This was one of those things that the Muggles would have a hard time either dismissing or inventing a natural explanation for, and should not be left to face alone.

"I am going to turn the storm," he said quietly. "I need you to _stay here_, in the meantime. There's no telling how far the storm extends, whether it's only over Cornwall or it's spreading. Remain here. Do you understand?"

"I'll keep them, _vates_." The witch who had spoken before was sounding steadier by the second. Harry took another glance at her. She looked Indian, with dark skin and hair, and brown eyes that reminded him of Thomas Rhangnara. He gave her a judicious nod.

"What's your name?"

"Alice Flowflower." She leaned anxiously forward. "Do you think you'll be able to defeat the storm, _vates_?"

Harry understood why she'd asked the question. Whether he could or not, it would help if he could appear confident in front of a crowd about to panic. He nodded. "I will."

There came sighs and mutters of relief from many people. Harry glanced out the window again, then closed his eyes. He could easily picture the sea-caves that were located in the cliff outside Cobley-by-the-Sea; they were the last refuges and escape holes in times of trouble for the people in the safehouse, even though sometimes they were drowned by the ocean. Since it didn't seem that the rain had succeeded in forcing its way through stone yet, they ought to be safe. He Apparated again.

He staggered as he ended up at the lip of a cliff above the sea, which ran sleekly by under the influence of the full moon. Harry saw purple drops cascade into it, spreading brief, dark, rainbow patterns like oil slicks. He grimaced. He didn't want to imagine what the rain was doing to the ocean life, either.

With the smell and sound of the spray thick in his nostrils and ears, he touched his wrist and spoke, "Laura?"

"Harry." Laura's voice was absolutely exhausted. "We're above the clouds. We've been trying to dive through them, but we can't. If it starts eating through the stone, I don't know how we're going to rescue the refugees inside the safehouse." Her voice altered, towards a tone of horror. "And we've been hearing the screaming coming up through it, too. Those poor Muggles…"

"Let me worry about that." Harry concentrated on keeping his tone smooth as the surface of the sea. "I need to know something. Does the storm extend across Cornwall? Is it growing or shrinking?"

"All across Cornwall, and spreading along the coast," said Laura. "I know the center of it is somewhere near Cobley-by-the-Sea, but, as I said, there's no way that we can descend and look for it without hurting ourselves."

"And I told you not to worry about that." Harry layered his voice with all the calm he could. He already knew that he couldn't handle the storm by himself, but he knew someone who could, if she would come at his call. "I will deal with it. Fly above the storm, and if it starts rising, go back to Hogwarts."

He ended the communication spell and stepped forward so that he stood on the very edge of the cave lip, before he lifted his voice. "Kanerva! Kanerva Stormgale! Dark Lady, Lady of the Winds! Can you hear me?"

No answer came. Harry thought for a moment of the people and animals that had died, and those that might still die if he could not stop the spread of the storm, and what would happen if Kanerva was up blowing in the winds around the Orkneys and refused to come back, or couldn't hear him.

Then he tamped down the thought. He would find a way to handle the storm himself if he must, though it would mean lost time and lives. He would call until he was _sure_ that she would not come.

"Kanerva!" he shouted again.

"Yes?"

Harry started badly, and he might have slipped on the wet rock and fallen into the Atlantic if he hadn't grabbed at the cave wall. When he looked up, Kanerva stood next to him, her body more than half fuzzed into the wind, leaving only a shallow outline below the waist. Her blue eyes watched him with soft, inquiring curiosity.

"Did you just appear?" Harry asked.

"I have been here all this time," said Kanerva. "Did you think I would not want to watch such an odd storm rising?" She nodded out the cave. "It is a magical storm. Did you know that?"

Harry swallowed bile. Of course, he had not imagined that once he had Kanerva with him, then he would have to persuade her to help.

But he would have to. And he would not do it by panicking and crying, any more than he would have convinced the refugees in the safehouse to remain still if he did that, or Laura not to send her horses through the rain.

"The storm _is_ unusual," he admitted. Kanerva nodded happily, her black hair billowing around her. Harry sighed and turned to look out of the cave, and fiercely refused to allow himself to think about the people who had probably died right that moment. "But I fear that it's not a product of natural magic, Kanerva. It's a product of winds tamed and forced to someone else's will. And the purpose isn't even to give the winds something to do, but to bear the poisonous rain." He shot a look at Kanerva, who had stopped smiling. He shrugged. "I'm sorry."

"You are lying," said Kanerva, a fierce frown on her face. "Anyone who raises a storm must love the wind."

Harry breathed out slowly, to control the impulse to scream, and reminded himself, _She is of the Dark, without the compassion to help on her own, and mad enough that yelling at her is enough to make her go in another direction. Be calm. _"I'm afraid not," he said. "This is a product of Voldemort's, and the only thing he wants is to hurt me, and the people and land I care for." He forced a shrug. "Laura Gloryflower told me that it's centered somewhere near Cobley-by-the-Sea. I don't know where, as I can hardly venture out into the rain. But—"

"I am going to see," Kanerva interrupted him, and then she whirled around and vanished.

Harry used the time she was gone to extend his wards beyond the cave. The purple rain promptly ate through them. Harry bowed his head and closed his eyes, listening to the steam and hiss as the drops eating through the stone came ever closer.

The air stirred around him. Harry opened his eyes. In front of him stood Kanerva, looking completely furious.

"It _is_ caused by someone," she hissed. "She's standing holding her wand out above a flagon, and charming a potion to rise into the winds and _make_ them bear this kind of rain. It is unfair. Only natural magic should be able to make them do that, or me." She bent nearer Harry, frowning. "For the sake of the winds, I must stop her. They might forget their freedom and become too used to being tame air that shifts in and out of lungs, or the control of spells."

"I—" Harry began.

"And you will help me, because you may be able to tell me who she is, so that I will know if she does this again," Kanerva told him, and seized him, and then blended them both into the wind.

Harry heard his yelp die, and then they were _blowing_ out the entrance of the cave and up into the sky.

Harry had for some reason imagined that Kanerva traveled as a single smooth current of wind, shouldering her way up and through the others. She didn't. She flung her consciousness from wind to wind, taking one current that was flowing in the right direction for as long as it would bear her, and then turning to another when that one sheared off, and then leaping again and again and again at a point near the cliffs where the air flurried and found itself manipulated by the rocks. The only senses left to Harry were sight and touch, and he could feel constant searing sensations of both heat and cold along the air that had taken the place of his skin, as Kanerva passed rapidly over patches of land that retained stored heat from the sun and those that didn't. And all the while, Harry could see the land flashing past, cliff and cave and rampart and patch of dead grass, and then they were eddying around a wide, broad meadow—or the remains of a meadow—and looking down on a glass flagon out of which came a purple steam that struck up into and joined the air. Harry flinched at the sensation of the potion that mingled with wind and made the rain, even though it couldn't hurt him without skin to act upon.

He recognized the witch that stood over the flagon, of course. The winds could see through moonlight or darkness with the same facility, and their sight was perfect.

"That's Indigena Yaxley," he said.

"She does not learn, then," said Kanerva peremptorily. "She should have listened to her sister's command, and not tried to command the winds." Harry found himself abruptly parted from her; her voice had sounded from above him, but now it came from the side, as if she had pushed him into another current to hover. "I will teach her better. Watch."

Harry saw the winds begin to turn, including the breezes that had blended with the rain and carried it out into the storm. Indigena raised her head with a slight frown, but never stopped moving her wand in a circle above the glass flagon.

Kanerva cackled.

A moment later, a wind blew over the glass vial, and it rolled and then shattered on the stone. Indigena cursed, from the movement of her mouth—Harry could still only hear sounds that were contained within the wind, his voice and Kanerva's—and knelt as if she would scoop the poison up into a new container.

There came a sound like a vast yawn, or someone sucking in breath and then letting it out, which Harry thought was closer to what Kanerva had done.

Wind roared and ripped free of the circle Indigena had forced it into, striking down and around in dizzying movements that Harry could observe but hardly keep track of. Crosscurrents seized Indigena and tossed her up and down like a leaf, hurling her in a direction Harry thought was west. Her robes flapped like the edges of bird's wings and then vanished.

"We will have a true storm," said Kanerva. "A storm at sea, for the wind is the lover of the ocean." Harry heard her whistle.

The winds turned, plunging like a herd of wild horses. For just a moment—perhaps Kanerva's Transfigured mind had brushed against his and lent him the image—Harry had a glimpse of the disordered harmony that they created together. Their whole was greater than the sum of their parts, an endlessly changing complexity that his brain had to fight to grasp even a piece of. Add to that how they joined in with the movement of the planet and the winds swarming over the sea and the winds on the other side of the world, and Harry thought that perhaps it was the study of the air itself and not the Dark that had driven Kanerva mad.

Then they turned and streamed out over the ocean, carrying the clouds and the rain with them. Harry called out to Kanerva, whom he thought was going with the storm. "Has the poison faded from the rain?"

"In a moment," Kanerva's distracted, disinterested voice replied. "The rain will go, too. We want a storm of wind and sea and fire. Like the one we made when we defeated the hive queen."

Harry staggered as his human body formed around him again, and he landed on his knees near the shattered flagon. He hastily pulled his hand back from any chance of contact with the purple potion, and then cast a bolt of fire forward. He wanted to burn whatever remained of it, just to lessen the chance of it running into the rocks and emerging again in water.

Then he glanced around. He could see no sign of Indigena.

On the other hand, there were plenty of signs of the devastation that her rain had caused. Fist-sized holes gaped in the stone. Boulders looked slagged and half-melted. Harry knew he was kneeling in what looked like the place where a large fire had burned, but which was in fact the remains of grass.

He closed his eyes. He did not like to see this, but someone had to see it—both to serve as a witness to the dead, and to have an idea of how large the problem was for Muggles and wizards alike.

Wings scraped the air above him. Harry looked up to see a Gloryflower horse touching down near him. Laura was on its back, and she started to hop off, peering anxiously at him.

Harry shook his head and held out his hand. "I need to ride," he said quietly. "To see what it has done. Take me up?"

"My lord—"

"Please."

Harry was glad that he had some practice at that calm tone which forced aside tears. Laura would certainly have hesitated to take him if he was half-hysterical and crying. As it was, she gave him a slow glance, nodded, and grasped his arm. Harry slid onto the horse's back behind her.

Up they went. Harry could feel the wind pulling at the horse's wings and tail, making the silver body sway, but for the most part all the swirling air had been drawn out over the sea. He saw blue lightning leap and gleam, and the already lifting waves of white water. There would be a spectacular storm, but without the rain that had been the death of so many.

"You said it spread along the coast," he murmured into Laura's ear. "Take me there, please."

Laura's spine stiffened, but then she sighed and cast one arm up in an imperious gesture. The horse soared higher, and higher, and then they broke through the cloud cover and into a deceptively peaceful gray world. Harry looked down as Laura murmured a spell that rolled the clouds back like a curtain.

The effects of the storm could be seen as black, jagged lightning bolts from this height, carved ravines of destruction next to the sea, running roughly north, but bending to follow the bends of the coast, as Laura had said. Harry saw nothing moving on the cliffs they followed. He tried to convince himself the height had something to do with that, and failed.

They reached a Muggle road, and Harry could see lights gleaming over piled husks of metal, and hear sirens. He cast a Disillusionment Charm on the horse, and asked Laura to descend closer.

"Harry, what good will it do?" Laura whispered. "They are dead."

"Please."

She made the horse stoop, until they were only a few hundred feet above the cars, and Harry could have a better view of the accidents. It seemed that many of the drivers had panicked when the rain began to fall, and lost control of their vehicles. Harry couldn't count the number of twisted doors, the motionless bodies, the blood sprayed here and there across the pavement where the rain hadn't managed to wash it away. The living Muggles who walked back and forth from the cars to emergency vehicles barely seemed to know what to make of it, either.

Harry focused on the injured and set about whispering what healing spells he could, _Integro_ to close wounds and other incantations that would slow the rate of bleeding. He didn't dare try more, not when he hadn't made a complete study of medical magic. Besides, there was probably delicate electrical equipment nearby that the presence of magic was disrupting. They had to leave.

"Higher again," he told Laura, and up they soared.

They were coming near villages and cities now, and Harry forced himself to look at carved-in and caved-in roofs, the blackened corpses of adults and children and animals who had run, the rank abysses of what had been gardens. In some places cars had driven into houses. In others, dazed survivors stood with heads lowered and feet shuffling, moving aimlessly back and forth. If other Muggles came up to tell them what to do, they blindly went and did it. Everything was stained red with blood, white with unconcerned moonlight, yellow with electric lights that went on blazing as if nothing was wrong.

Harry tried to estimate how long the rain had lasted. _Fifteen minutes? Twenty?_

One thing was clear, though, the further Laura flew and the more ruin Harry saw. He could not keep things secret any longer. This necessitated a visit to the Muggle Prime Minister at the very least.

_And who's going to make that visit? _he wondered. _The Minister of Magic is traditionally the one in contact with the Muggle government, but I doubt Juniper will go to him, and in any case he won't say or do the right things if he does. _

_It will have to be me._

_Well, that's what I signed up for when I accepted this burden to fight Voldemort._

"You can go back now," he told Laura, and she turned her horse with a little grimace and exclamation of relief. Harry leaned his head on his hands and closed his eyes for a moment, gently massaging his brow.

_If I can find and destroy the Horcruxes—_

_Yet who can I ask to die for them?_

When he opened his eyes and looked beneath the horse again, he had to wonder if there weren't people who would willingly give their lives to prevent things like this from happening.

_I am willing to die. Perhaps others are, too._


	23. Come Into the War Zone

Thanks for the reviews on the last chapters! 

My apologies for the extreme lateness of this one. I was wrestling with the character portrayal of a human being who actually exists, not something I've had to do before. Many thanks to phangkyu, who is British—as I am not—for advice on portraying Tony Blair as he was circa July of 1997. I hope I've done him justice.

**Chapter Seventeen: Come Into the War Zone**

"I'm sorry, sir, but I don't think that will be possible."

Erasmus felt his spine stiffen. But he knew he could not show panic or even anger in front of his people, not now. Enough of them had broken into sobbing and crying when the news of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's latest attack had come to the Ministry. He made sure his face was wintry and turned back around. "And why not, Obliviator?"

He expected at least a show of respect, but Lethe Amarantha, the Head of the Obliviator Office, just raked a hand through her waist-length brown hair and gave him a weary look. "Too many Muggles saw this, sir," she said flatly. "The cameras were here before we were. We can change the memories of locals, but we can't possibly find everyone who saw this—disaster." A jerk of her head took in the ruin around them. Erasmus had noticed that she had yet to look at most of the piled cars and dead bodies directly. "Even if we came up with one explanation that satisfied everyone here, other people would come in and investigate it, and we don't know what facts the Muggles have devised. Something would always match the story of a deadly rainfall. So, I'm sorry, sir, but I don't think Obliviating the memory of purple rain that ate metal and stone and living things will do much good."

Erasmus breathed out, and reminded himself that he needed Amarantha. The Obliviators were more crucial than they had ever been now, and they followed only her.

But he would not forget that, on the eve of the greatest crisis ever to strike their world, she had disobeyed him and refused to even think about the worse consequences than the disturbance in a few Muggles' memories—the possible exposure of their world to them.

"Then seek out anyone offering hints of a magical explanation," he ordered. "Anyone who might have seen or overheard a true witch or wizard." Some of their people had come to gawk, of course, and might have been less than careful, just as they had been on that long-ago day when He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named fell at Godric's Hollow and they thought he was gone forever.

Amarantha nodded, and turned, whistling two of her Obliviators to her. They came like obedient dogs, confirming Erasmus's perception that who dominated Amarantha dominated them. At one point, he had been sure she would not balk at anything he asked of her—she was Declared Light, and had broken with family tradition to do so, demonstrating her dedication—but it seemed that gross reality weighed more with her than he had anticipated.

And then the idea hit him, and unfolded with surprising speed, like a rose charmed to grow and die in a few seconds.

_Harry appealed for help in guarding safehouses to the other Ministers, and they answered him. But what if I were to appeal for help in keeping the Statute of Secrecy intact? This is certainly something that concerns them—that should concern all of us. If a British wizarding world were revealed, it would be only a short time before they discovered our communities all over the planet. And Harry's actions have been reckless enough to threaten international law. Yes, they should care._

Erasmus turned, scanning the darkness, lit by flashes of Muggle emergency lightning, behind him. His secretary, a young man related to the Griffinsnest family, caught his eye, started, and hurried forward, stepping around oblivious Muggles who hadn't learned to see beneath a Disillusionment Charm. _And thank Merlin for that, _Erasmus thought. _The day they do is the day we can bid any safety in our world farewell._

"You wanted me, sir?"

Erasmus nodded. "I want you to begin drafting letters to the Ministers of Europe," he said. "I'll prepare the translation spells for them. But you will need to look up appropriate phrasing for them."

The young man's face went pale, but he gulped bravely and shouldered on. Erasmus approved of him. "What are they going to be about, sir?"

Erasmus looked again at the long ravine the rain had carved in solid stone. And this had taken only a few minutes of destruction, from what the Aurors told him. Erasmus shook his head. If anything could expose their world to the Muggles, it was this. One would think Harry would take his duty of killing You-Know-Who more seriously, when their safety from the Muggles was at stake.

"They should be about the International Statute of Secrecy," he said, "and preserving it for the sake of our community, against both Dark Lords and mad undeclared wizards alike."

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Indigena Apparated, and then nearly collapsed. She heard a snarl in front of her, and quickly, shakily, lifted her head.

A pale fawn werewolf crouched there, and its amber eyes seemed to dominate the whole of the world. Indigena fumbled for a chain around her neck that her Lord had given her when she Apparated back to his burrow and then here, feeling as if she used the last of her strength.

Hawthorn roared and charged. Indigena held the silver chain up in her hand, though, and began to swing it around her head. It blazed with radiance as fierce as moonlight, and the werewolf halted and slowed, intimidated by either that or the presence of silver itself. She whimpered, turning her head away and actually becoming docile.

Indigena's breathing slowed again. It seemed the potion her Lord had made Adalrico brew in order to make a werewolf docile just from the smell, a variant of Wolfsbane that didn't give them back human intelligence, worked after all.

"Come here, Hawthorn," she said.

The werewolf gave a low snarl, but slunk forward until her head was right under Indigena's fingers. Indigena slowly clenched her tendrils and her fingers in the pale ruff, thanking Merlin that Harry hadn't made the cage he'd trapped Hawthorn in proof against Apparition. Of course, he knew werewolves couldn't Apparate while transformed, and he probably thought most people would be unwilling to venture into a cage with a wild werewolf at all.

Indigena closed her eyes and concentrated on the image of her Lord's burrow. Pain shuddered through her body where a tough coating of both skin and leaves had barely kept her from dying on the jagged rocks where the Dark Lady's winds had flung her. But she had to do this. It would not do to leave Hawthorn to be recaptured by Harry's side—and once she became human again, Harry even stood a chance of talking her out of her hatred. The Dark Lord was not going to lose a pawn like that.

The darkness surrounded them, and for the barest moment Indigena was afraid it wouldn't work. But then the world lightened and widened, and Indigena opened her eyes to find them crouched in the burrow in front of the throne room, with Hawthorn's fur still tangled in her fingers. Already, though, the werewolf was whining and snapping as the effects of the potion wore off.

"I'll take her from here, cousin."

She looked up. Oaken Yaxley stood over her, distinguishable from his brother by his brown eyes and the fact that he almost never smiled. He nodded and hooked a silver chain smeared with the same potion around Hawthorn's neck. The werewolf whimpered quietly as he led her away. Indigena simply knelt where she was, even though she knew she should rise and go to Voldemort—a fact only reinforced by Oaken turning around to add, "Our Lord wishes to see you right away, cousin."

_One more moment_, Indigena promised herself, half-closing her eyes. _Just one, to rest and recover my strength._

Pain struck through the Dark Mark on her arm, making her open her eyes and jerk to her feet almost before she realized what she was doing. She sucked in a breath, swayed, caught herself on the wall, stopped the thorny rose on her wrist from trying to squirm into the dirt, and then went to confront her Lord.

Voldemort hovered above the throne now; the presence of several new Death Eaters meant he could use their magic even when some of his older allies were out on missions. The flesh-snake was draped around his neck and his waist and his shoulders. Its eyes cut at Indigena like knives.

"Explain why you failed." The voice was so deep, and so full of hissing, that Indigena had a hard time making out the words at first.

"I failed because the Dark Lady there was too strong for me, my Lord." Indigena might have made cowering excuses if she was a different kind of witch. But she was not, and so she remained on her feet, meeting her Lord's eyes, and did not flinch when the pain began to stab up her left arm as if she were having a heart attack. She could feel the leaves beneath her skin withering and dying.

"That is not an excuse."

"It is the truth."

Voldemort hissed again, and this time he sounded like a kettle boiling. "The truth and an excuse are not the same thing, Indigena."

"I do not know if you wish me to beg for forgiveness, my Lord." _Keep your words simple. The truth, in this case, is. _"I am not a Lady. I cannot face Stormgale and Jing-Xi on an equal level. I will do what I can to help you oppose Harry, but I nearly died tonight, and in such a situation, there is no excuse that would content you."

She blinked when she was done; she thought she hadn't meant to say all that. But instead of attacking her as she expected, or even calling someone else in to torture them in her place, as he had done with Adalrico, Voldemort continued to watch her.

A moment later, he said, as if out of the blue, "Who would you say the least valuable of my recalled Death Eaters is, Indigena?"

"Feldspar," said Indigena, without even stopping to consider it.

Voldemort laughed, a rasping sound like a snake slithering in large circles. "Alas, I think I must retain him to make you happy, my dear," he said, and Indigena couldn't say if he was joking or not. "But, other than that? The one who has the fewest skills, who has done the least for us?"

Indigena shook her head. "I do not know, my Lord. Hawthorn did not accomplish all her missions, and has fought you, but you have said that she has the least chance of breaking free of her chains. Lucius Malfoy has done little specifically, but I know that you wish to retain him to hurt Draco Malfoy. Adalrico has made mistakes in potions, but you need his skills."

Voldemort went still as if listening to something, and then said, "Yes, Indigena. You have helped me to make my decision. You are dismissed. Go into your chambers and remain there until I call for you."

Indigena was more than happy to accept the dismissal. Her body still ached as if the winds were tossing her, and scrapes had opened in her skin which bled a mixture of blood and green sap. She wanted nothing more than to lie down, smear her wounds with earth, and begin the healing process.

And then think about the nightmare she was living in.

She had watched drops of purple, poisonous rain strike the grass she loved, and wither it out of recognition. She had watched the same thing happen to animals, to people, and even to stone, which she tended to think of as impervious to harm. But the grass hurt the most. It had done no hurt. There was no possible way that her Lord could thin it opposed him, or even that it was a very valuable resource to his enemies, as Muggle machines could be.

She was tired, and heartsick.

But she knew there was no choice save to keep going. Flee, and her Lord could drag her back through the Dark Mark, and then she would not even have the dignity of chosen service. Or he would call a second honor debt upon the Yaxley family, and condemn another person to the same remorseless—and, Indigena feared, honorless—world that she was living in.

She had made a decision. She was the one who had laid the bed of thorns, and the one who must lie in it. She could ask for no help.

The only thing to do was keep going.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry knew what would happen when he walked through the entrance hall doors and found Draco, Snape, Connor, Peter, Henrietta, McGonagall, and Narcissa waiting for him with various looks of fury.

The difference from many other situations like this he'd faced was that he didn't really care what they would say. He intended to defend his actions and move past them as soon as possible so that he could secure their help in doing what was truly important—contacting the Muggle Minister, for example.

It could have had to do with the memories of carnage still present in his mind. It could have had to do with the fact that he'd just visited the cage in the Forest, and found Hawthorn gone, and suffered a surge of self-loathing at his own stupidity in not making the cage proof against Apparition.

Whatever it was, the sight of people with arms folded simply made his mind go flat and blank, and his own arms fold in return. He stood looking at them, and wondered vaguely if anyone else was watching from around the corner and what he or she would think if so.

Draco started, of course. Snape and McGonagall could sound sterner, but they didn't have Draco's passion for reprimanding Harry. "What was the meaning of that, Harry?" he demanded. "Running off into the Forest, and then _Cornwall_, which we _only_ knew because Mrs. Gloryflower contacted us, was—"

"The right thing to do," Harry said, and Draco actually shut up and paid attention to him. It was probably his tone of voice. Harry knew he sounded impatient, because he _wanted _to sound impatient. Coaxing wouldn't work this time. "I couldn't allow Hawthorn to be hurt, or hurt her, thanks to the family alliance oath. I was going to have the Gloryflower horses distract her, but that didn't work. I chased her into the Forest and shut her in a cage beyond harm. As it turned out, though, since I didn't secure the cage against Apparition, another Death Eater Apparated in and took her. That is what happened. What I did was what had to be done."

While Draco was still blinking, Snape rallied. "It was _dangerous_," he said, hissing like grass in a high wind. "When you promised to rely on us more, Harry, we did not mean only for potions and counsel. You are supposed to take us into battle with you, as well."

"Even when there was absolutely nothing you could have done?" Harry inquired dryly. "When you would have wanted to kill Hawthorn, sir, because of your insane hatred for werewolves and because _you_ do not have an oath holding you back? When you could have done nothing to fend off the storm Indigena Yaxley raised, and only Lady Stormgale's control over the winds managed it? Oh, yes, of course. I should have come back for you at once, sir. That should have been my first priority, over _lives._"

Snape's eyes narrowed. "You could have contacted us from Cornwall, Harry," he said, with too much calm. "Once you knew that Lady Stormgale was going to turn the rains."

"I had other things to think about," said Harry, and he could feel his anger unfolding slow coils in him, like the Squid shifting about under the lake. "In particular, viewing the devastation and deciding on how to inform the Muggle Prime Minister of it."

"You _cannot_ expose our world to the Muggles." Henrietta took a step forward, as if she thought that would make Harry listen to her. "Not because of the International Statute of Secrecy—that is rubbish if you say it is, Harry." Harry forced himself not to glance away from the mad devotion shining in her eyes. "But because of history, of what they did to us last time they knew of us, the persecution that caused us to retreat behind Disillusionment Charms and Muggle-repelling spells."

Harry shook his head. "It's no good. They have clues, anyway. The revelations the Opallines are making on the Isle of Man, for instance. The sight of the dragon and my image in the skies battling the sirens only a few months back. And now—there are too many Muggles dead. Hundreds or thousands, in a few minutes."

"You should calm down, Harry." Peter now, trying the patient saint route. "Think, talk with us, sleep on it—"

"No."

Peter sighed. "Harry, at the moment you are distraught, and have reason to be distraught. But you cannot choose to throw over the principles of our world in a day. If you wait—"

"I will not." Harry shook his head when he saw the looks they were giving him. "I know that none of you will agree with me, that you'll try to talk me out of it, and that those arguments will take days, perhaps weeks. In the meantime, panic in the Muggle world will spread, and Voldemort may launch another attack that does even more damage. I know that not everyone cares about Muggles, or feels they should have as much knowledge as might guard them against this war. But do you know something? _I_ do. I _do_ care. And I will tell them."

"Harry, if you are going blindly into danger, whether it is in Cornwall or London, it is up to us to tell you so," said McGonagall. For the first time in months, she sounded as if she were angry at _him_, rather than the officials from the Ministry who kept insisting that she shut the school.

"And I do not think I am going blindly," Harry said. "I do think that I went alone tonight because I am the only one who had the capability and the power to respond—as so many of you have insisted so many times, by telling me that I am a Lord-level wizard and worth something—and I will go alone to London because I am the only one who will not try to undermine this meeting."

"You can't _do_ that," said Draco furiously. Connor nodded fiercely behind him, looking at Harry in a way that would have made him shrivel up a few years ago, though he said nothing.

Harry shook his head again. "I'm not doing it to score rhetorical points in a debate with you. I have larger things to think about now."

"There is the matter of your safety tonight—" Snape started, and Harry's gaze actually made him flinch.

"I returned safely," Harry said. "I will be in danger in the _future. _That should be what concerns you, if you truly care about my life."

He swung around and left them silent and staring behind him. He could particularly feel Narcissa's stare. She had a habit of making her eyes cold and steady and sharp that reminded him of a Dementor's voice: ice spikes being driven into one's head.

He didn't care, though—not truly. He could not care. He knew he might be acting alone in this case because no one shared his ideals, just as no one had shared his ideals when he first began the campaign to free the house elves.

But it did not matter. If he had to be a leader who stood alone for this task, he would be a leader who stood alone. What mattered was what he accomplished and how he accomplished it, not whether he'd received his punishment like a good little boy.

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

Connor shook his head as he watched his brother leave. He'd never seen Harry so cold, nor so oblivious of the larger context.

_Doesn't he see? He's a symbol, too, the way that Lily wanted me to be when she still thought I was the Boy-Who-Lived. What he does has more impact than just saving lives. It encourages people to trust him—or distrust him._

The noticing that refused to go away would not let Connor be blind anymore, no matter how tightly Harry might close his eyes. Connor saw the gazes that followed him in the hall, how people swayed towards him when he spoke, how they talked over his decisions and his actions among themselves. Just as people had once felt safe when Dumbledore was Headmaster, when they believed he would fight Dark Lords before surrendering his students, now people were learning to feel safe with Harry.

_If he starts acting the way he used to—dashing into danger without accompaniment—they'll think he's reckless. And we don't need that._

He glanced around. Draco was still staring after Harry, but the others had turned away, departing in pairs—Peter and Snape—or as individuals into privacy to think about what had happened. No one would notice him slip away, probably, or at least Draco wouldn't know if Connor pretended to go to Gryffindor Tower and in reality tracked his brother down.

That was what he did, walking out of the entrance hall shaking his head and muttering as if, like the others, he had not the slightest idea of how to deal with Harry. Once he reached the staircases, however, he stopped, drew his wand, and whispered, "_Point Me_ Harry."

The length of holly and phoenix feather glittered as it turned, and finally pointed upwards, towards the Astronomy Tower. Connor snorted under his breath. _Merlin knows why he likes going there so often, since it was the last place he fought Snape. But if he's up there, up I go._

It took him longer than he wanted it to, given that the staircases seemed determined to play more than their usual share of tricks, and twice stranded him in midair as they swung between floors. Connor kept hoping that no one else would reach Harry before him; he didn't think they would know the right things to say. But when he was on his way up the steps to the Astronomy Tower, listening intently, Connor couldn't hear voices from above him.

He came out on the top, and Harry stood gazing moodily over the side. He turned when he heard his brother, but his eyes held only cold acknowledgment, not the recognition that Connor had been hoping for.

_Well, when in doubt, begin bluntly._

"You understand _why_ you pissed everyone off, don't you?" he asked.

"Of course I understand." Harry's voice was bored, which Connor knew was a bad sign. "I simply don't care."

Connor snorted and folded his arms. "Don't care about what we think, Harry? Don't care about keeping yourself safe? And here I thought the promise you made to yourself at the beginning of the summer covered exactly that."

"I had no choice in what I did," said Harry, still with that level of careful, precise control Connor was unused to seeing from him. "I couldn't allow Hawthorn to come to harm, and I couldn't wait for assurances that whoever came with me wouldn't harm her, and I couldn't wait and race through the school instead of Apparating. And if I'd lingered to argue instead of going to Cornwall, how many people would have died?"

"I don't actually dispute that," said Connor, feeling his way carefully forward. "I know that you felt you had to react quickly."

Harry's eyes narrowed. "Then why are you here?"

And Connor did know the way to phrase it, then. The problem with what they'd done in the entrance hall had been the yelling and the implication that they cared more about punishing Harry, or the fact he hadn't taken them along, than what he'd actually accomplished. And of course he wasn't going to listen to concerns floated in that atmosphere. He would only see it as their valuing his life over the lives of others, and that was not something Harry had ever agreed with.

"Do you think it's best to make a hasty decision about seeing the Prime Minister _now_, when you're so tired and upset?" Connor asked. "I'd hate to see you make a mistake because of your emotions. If only because you wallow in guilt and self-loathing for so long after making a mistake."

That won a reluctant smile from Harry, but he still shook his head. "It's not a mistake, Connor," he said. "He _may_ know about magic—I know the Minister is supposed to keep in touch with the Muggle government—but I don't think he does. Scrimgeour may have been in contact with him, but he never mentioned it. And Juniper won't do it, Merlin knows."

"And you think that knowing magic will make a difference?" Connor asked. "How can it enable them to protect themselves from something like this storm you described, Harry?"

"I don't know."

"Then why—"

"But I don't know that much about the Muggle world," Harry interrupted. "And neither do you, Connor. They may be able to do something. At the least, they may be able to prevent panic. The government can react more effectively if they know something about what's going on than if they don't."

Connor tapped his foot on the flagstones beneath them. He certainly wasn't as violently prejudiced against the Muggle world as someone like Lucius Malfoy—or Erasmus Juniper—was, but he couldn't help a frisson of fear at the thought that Muggles might know about wizards soon.

"There are _more_ of them than there are of us, Harry," he said. "They could hurt us if they try."

Harry cocked his head. "Did you really imagine I was going to tell him where to find the entrance to the Ministry, Connor, or Diagon Alley?" He gave a soft snort. "That's assuming he'll even listen to me, since I'm not the Minister of Magic."

"What _are_ you going to tell him, then?"

"That we're fighting a war," said Harry, "that this is not a natural disaster—though I wonder how even _they_ would spin this to make it look like one—and that his people are at risk. That's all. After convincing him that magic is real, of course."

"It's a risky decision," said Connor doubtfully.

Harry snorted again. "And wouldn't you want to know about a war that might affect you, Connor, even if you weren't fighting directly in it, even if there _was_ little you could do to protect yourself against it? At least it will give the government a structure and a basis to work with. Whether they'll tell ordinary people, I don't know. I doubt it. But imagine blows coming from nowhere, blows that you can't defend against and which have no explanation. Wouldn't that terrify you more?"

"Yes, but—"

"But what?"

Connor shook his head. All the objections he could come up with sounded too much like the anti-Muggle slurs the Dark purebloods kept speaking—that the danger of Muggles was less than the danger of wizards, and why should people who couldn't do anything to help know anything? Except that there were plenty of wizards who couldn't do anything to help, either, and they knew. And if Connor didn't believe that wizards and Muggles were really different kinds of people, then he couldn't argue that there was a qualitative difference in what they should know.

_And so many wizards have been sluggish and slow to help Harry with anything, or even join in the war at all. They're still counting on Lord-level magic to save or damn them. They think they can do nothing, so they won't struggle forward. Isn't that pretty much the Muggle situation right now? Maybe the Muggle Minister can frame it so that his people won't panic._

"You've thought about this, haven't you," he accused his brother.

Harry smiled a little. "Yes. I first made the decision when looking down on what the rain left." Connor found it hard to be sure in the moonlight, but he thought Harry's face went gray. "There is no end to the death Voldemort will cause if he begins another attack like that, Connor. And if he stirs up the Muggles enough, the chances of an exposure of the wizarding world that we _don't_ control and can't predict just become greater."

"You could have said this in the entrance hall," Connor murmured.

Harry's face hardened again, and he shook his head. "To a bunch of people whose major thought is punishing me? No. Approach me with rational arguments, the way that you did, and I'm willing to speak and listen. But they were speaking then as if I should feel guilty for protecting Hawthorn and going to Cornwall. I don't."

Connor shrugged and searched for words. "It wasn't about punishment," he said. "Not for me. It's never been, Harry."

Harry arched an eyebrow at him.

"It really isn't," Connor said earnestly. "I don't want to keep you in line, like Snape does, or keep you in bed, the way Draco does." He could feel his face flushing red, and he hurried quickly past that mental image. He _still_ didn't want to think about his brother having sex. He could think of many other things with aplomb, but not—that. "It just worries me when it seems that you don't consider your life as important as the lives of others."

"I'm trying," said Harry, and his voice was hard. "But just because I'm trying doesn't mean it will happen in every situation, Connor. I decide from moment to moment, circumstance to circumstance. If the danger in Cornwall had been less severe, or I had more time to respond, then perhaps I would have let someone else come with me. But, as it was, I had to make the decision on the fly. And I refuse to apologize for that." He leaned forward, eyes fastened on Connor's face. "There are many, many things that are more important than my life."

Connor studied his brother. He half-wanted to claim that this was another sign of Harry's training to value himself less than anyone else.

But—

He was afraid that it was just a sign of the man Harry had become after healing from his training, instead.

He'd chosen to pursue multiple causes where he did have to believe that his principles were worth more than his life in order to pursue them at all. And the idea that other people's lives were more important than his could be backed up by all kinds of philosophical justifications that he'd mostly learned as he wove the supports for those principles in his mind, not from Lily.

_Oh, Harry, _Connor thought, understanding, as never before, what Draco and Snape must have been feeling when they knew his _real_ brother, before he did. _I know it's important. I know that you wouldn't be happy unless you were doing something like this. But I wish you could see how hard it is for people who just want _you_ to be safe, instead of everyone innocent in the world._

He nodded. "I think I understand. I'm sorry."

Harry nodded back, but didn't apologize. Connor could understand that, too. It would have been a lie.

He left Harry there on the top of the Astronomy Tower, and went back to Gryffindor. Ron was waiting for him, propped up on one elbow in his bed. "Harry all right?" he asked quietly.

"Yeah." Connor lay down in his own bed and closed his eyes. Respecting the signal that he didn't want to talk, Ron turned away with a rustle of blankets.

Connor spent some time hoping that the meeting with the Prime Minister went well for both Harry and the Prime Minister, and then some time thinking about Parvati, whose parents still wouldn't let her visit Hogwarts often, and then some more time slipping gently into sleep, that gray half-state where the worries of the day gradually grew more and more muffled.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry slipped gently into the office and shut the door behind him. The man sitting on the other side of the room looked up, murmured a name Harry couldn't make out, and then went back to the document he was reading, apparently dismissing it as the wind.

Getting past Muggle security had been easier than Harry expected. It had turned out that _Extabesco plene_ worked just as well on Muggles as it did on wizards, and cameras and whatever other security devices they used couldn't pick up on traces of someone who wasn't technically in existence at the moment. The biggest challenge for Harry had been waiting for other people to pass through doors so that he could follow them. He didn't want to start opening doors on their own and making someone so jumpy he would think he had to get the Prime Minister out of danger.

Now Harry cast a few silencing spells at the walls, since he fully expected the man to cry out when he revealed himself, and then another moment studying the Muggle. He was fairly ordinary as far as Muggles went, Harry supposed—young, probably not fifty yet. His face had a look of intent bustle that Harry thought might be innate, or perhaps related to the fact that he had just come into office recently and had a lot to deal with.

_Including the carnage last night, _Harry remembered with a wince, and the memory battered down his last objections to revealing himself to the man. He took a deep breath and dropped the _Extabesco plene_.

The Muggle looked up at once, and then half-stood, his mouth open. In another moment, he caught himself and slowly sat down again, his eyes locked on Harry and a faint smile creeping up the side of his mouth.

"Hullo, sir," Harry said quietly.

"You should know," said the man conversationally, "that the British government does not negotiate with terrorists, young man." He looked Harry up and down. "Even terrorists who appear to be sixteen," he added, with more of a question in his voice.

_Terrorists? Oh, of course. That's probably what they assume happened last night. And they're not far wrong. Voldemort certainly works by terror. _Harry decided that he might as well cut straight to the chase.

"I'm not a terrorist," he said. "My name is Harry."

"If you're not a terrorist," said the Prime Minister in a very level voice, "would you mind, greatly, telling me what you're doing in my office?"

"Have you ever heard of a man called Rufus Scrimgeour, sir?" Harry asked. He kept his hands down and away from his body, while he used his will to place a locking charm on the office door. There might be a silent way of calling for help from inside, and Harry wanted to make absolutely sure they weren't interrupted.

"Can't say I have," said the Minister. "Odd name. Odd name. And I haven't heard of a 'Harry' either. If this is about a pet cause of yours, you could have addressed it in a letter, you know, like any normal person."

He had a half-smile on his face and was talking in a low voice, the way someone might soothe a frightened horse. Harry recognized it, and had to grin wryly. That was the same voice he'd used to speak to the refugees in Cobley-by-the-Sea last night.

The man—Harry remembered someone saying his name was Blair—seemed surprised by the smile. At least, he sat back a little and looked at Harry, and Harry took the chance.

"Then I suppose you haven't seen magic," he said.

Almost at once, Blair's posture altered again, though Harry wondered if an ordinary terrorist come to lock himself in the office with the Prime Minister and demand attention would have noticed. The man was really very good at not giving his emotions away. He had decided that Harry was mad, of course.

"I'm generally more ready to see rabbits pulled out of hats when one makes an appointment," he said.

Harry nodded. He had thought this would be the hardest part of it. He clasped his hands together and then drew them apart, letting strands of light shaped like a spiderweb splay between his palms.

Blair frowned, but said, "Mirrors. I fail to see what—"

Harry blew on the light, and it detached itself from his palms and drifted over to hover halfway between him and Blair. Blair's hand twitched, as if he were ready to reach for a weapon.

"I have told you—" he began.

Harry concentrated, and the light grew solid and then settled into a heavy metal plate. Harry had deliberately not chosen a threatening shape, and he had already seen a scrap of paper on the floor he could Transfigure. While Blair was still staring at the plate, Harry picked up the scrap of paper with his magic, wafted it in front of the Prime Minister, and transformed it into a single vivid purple flower with green markings, like nothing native in either the mundane or magical worlds. He set it carefully on the plate.

The silence was eloquent.

Blair simply looked at the flower and the plate. Then he sat back and locked his eyes on Harry's again.

"There must be mirrors involved somewhere," he said, but his voice was slightly higher-pitched than it had been.

"No mirrors," said Harry. He fought to keep his patience. He had known this part would be difficult; that was the whole point. "What would convince you, sir? What would prove magic for you beyond a doubt, without the need to resort to explanations of mirrors and wires and tame animals up my sleeve?" Privately, he thought changing the man into an animal would do it, but he wasn't practiced enough at human Transfiguration to attempt it. Becoming an Animagus was very different from forcibly changing someone else; even McGonagall did it with the greatest of care.

"Nothing would," said Blair. He seemed to be getting steadier now. "Magic doesn't exist."

Harry frowned, but he had planned for this. He reached into his robe pocket, making sure that his hand motion was slow enough not to frighten the Minister, and drew out his shrunken Pensieve, which he enlarged with a quiet word and set on the desk. Watching it grew bigger certainly made Blair's eyes widen, but he shook his head and murmured, "An optical illusion."

"The silver liquid inside is memories," said Harry. "Specifically, _my_ memories, of what happened last night. Will you visit them with me?"

"And how would I do that?" Blair now sounded as if he were humoring a child. Harry spent another moment studying his face, though, and could see the first flickers of doubt behind his eyes. Harry really had nearly broken through with the transformation of the paper, or perhaps the plate, or perhaps his entrance. Blair was trying to hold on to his reality, but it was being severely challenged at the moment.

"Place your head inside the Pensieve."

Blair shook his head and smiled kindly at him. "Now why would I do that, Mr.—do you have a surname? You only ever introduced yourself as Harry."

"I know," said Harry. "And no, I gave up my surname when my parents were tried for child abuse."

The Prime Minister's eyes kindled. "And would there be a record of this trial?"

"Hardly," said Harry. "None that you can access, at any rate." He regretted not bringing a copy of the _Daily Prophet_ with him, but Blair would likely have found some way to dismiss that, as well, even the moving photographs. "Please, sir, put your head into the Pensieve."

"I will not—" And then the man cut off, his eyes widening as he stared over Harry's shoulder.

Not about to fall for one of the oldest tricks in the world, Harry sharpened his senses instead of turning around. He felt nothing, however, save a rush of magic. When he glanced back, cautiously, he understood what had happened. His frustration, the latest in a long series of emotions he'd been feeling almost without a break, had relaxed his control over his magic. The shadows of jungle trees glittered on the walls, and in every single one clung a black jaguar with green eyes, all of them splitting at Blair.

"You—know something about lights and shadows," said Blair, but his voice was a bit more cracked and strained now.

"This _is_ magic," said Harry quietly. He knew why Blair was so affected. The visions, a Muggle might be able to fake with a clever light show, but it was much harder to create the sensation that swirled around them now, magic pressing against the skin like flesh and fur, fire and sunlight. "This is mine. I'm one of the most powerful wizards in our world, sir, and that's part of the problem. Another powerful wizard is opposing me, and in his hatred for me, he's striking out at Muggles—I'm sorry, ordinary British citizens—and wizards alike. The memories are in the Pensieve. Please, will you view them?"

Blair hesitated again. Harry let the sensation of magic in the room grow stronger, and waited.

The Prime Minister must have considered himself a good judge of character. He straightened, and nodded slightly, as if committing himself to the cause, consequences be damned. Then he edged forward and lowered his head cautiously into the silver liquid of the Pensieve. Harry followed.

In silence, he watched as the scene from last night played out, from the moment of his arrival at Cobley-by-the-Sea. Most of the time, he observed Blair, and watched the man devour it all with sharp ears and eyes, from the fact that other people spoke to Harry with urgent fear and using unfamiliar words, to the fact that Harry called out to Kanerva, to the fact that he got a _response_. Blair jumped when Kanerva appeared beside him in the memory. As he listened to her accented English, Harry saw one hand slowly close into a fist.

_He doesn't like the idea that there are more of us, _Harry thought. _A whole world of wizards, living out beyond Britain._

He closed his eyes briefly. He had known he was taking a risk, with this. And turning back now was simply not a choice, not when Voldemort's attacks on the Muggles were likely to get larger and more destructive.

Harry thought he caught the moment when the man became a true believer—Harry's memory of riding with Kanerva on the winds. Skipping from current to current, the muddled and dizzying flashes of the land they passed over, mingled with the sensations of heat and cold, were as they had passed into Harry's head, touched, perhaps, with a bit of Kanerva's own sensations to flesh it out and keep it from being overwhelming, since the Pensieve recorded what was truly _there_ and not only what one person remembered.

Blair continued silent, of course, even as Kanerva disrupted Indigena's potion and whistled the winds out over the sea, and as the flying horses descended. Harry looked over during his ride above the ruins of Muggle villages and cities and roads, and saw him standing with head bowed and eyes closed.

"I think I've seen enough," he said abruptly.

Harry nodded, and tugged himself sharply backward, adding a bit of magic to pull Blair out when he seemed unsure how to remove himself from the Pensieve. Blair sat back in his chair behind the desk and closed his eyes, then opened them again.

"I want to know more," he said. "How many of you are there? Where exactly do you live? Who is the wizard you're fighting? Why have _you_ come to me, and not some more proper representative of your government?"

Privately, Harry was impressed with the man's ability to overcome a major shock like this and soldier on. "You're dealing with me because our competent Minister was assassinated at the beginning of June, by the wizard I'm fighting, and his replacement is incompetent," he said. "The man I'm fighting is called Voldemort. He uses magic like the rain last night because he _wants_ to, to torture and kill, and because Muggles—ordinary humans—are nothing to him. I'm not going to give you complete answers to the rest. We live with and among you. We have pretty much since the beginning of time. I'm sure you understand why I'm unwilling to say more than that." He locked eyes with Blair and waited.

Blair nodded tightly. "And you think that Voldemort will win this war? What was your _purpose_ in coming here?"

"To warn you," said Harry simply. "To make sure that one person, at least, had an explanation."

Blair went on gazing at him for long moments, then shook his head. "And you actually expect me to explain _magic_?"

"It's up to you what you choose to do with the information," Harry said, while privately reflecting that many things about this war would be a good deal easier if he believed in the rightness of using compulsion. "I don't know enough about the Muggle world to say what the best way of explaining it is. Hopefully _you_ should know how to prevent panic."

"And will another attack like the one last night happen again?"

"I don't know," Harry said, folding his arms and hoping he looked stern instead as if he were trying to hold himself up. The night without sleep and the constant roiling emotions were rather getting to him. "I'm trying to prevent it. Voldemort is trying a war of attrition, however, hoping to wear down both wizards and Muggles without losing himself. I _do_ know the way to kill him, and I hope to do it soon." He hesitated for a moment, then offered, "There's a prophecy that claims he _will_ die, though who will kill him is a bit unclear."

"A prophecy." Blair closed his eyes. "Yes, why not a prophecy? We have had nearly everything else."

"Prime Minister? Are you all right, sir?"

"The disturbances on the Isle of Man," said Blair abruptly, looking rather alarmed. "That isn't _your_ lot, is it?"

"Some of them," said Harry, feeling a vague embarrassment, even though as far as he knew the Opallines had only invited a few Muggles to tour their home, Gollrish Y Thie, the immense house shaped from the bones of a British Red-Gold dragon. "Yes."

Blair appeared to be thinking furiously for a moment. "Then they aren't illusions or the brilliant prank the Manx are treating it as."

"No, sir."

"I'll have to prevent writeups," Blair muttered savagely. "In the meantime, I'd appreciate it if you could control them as much as possible. Managing this will be hard enough without more of you lot getting in the way and making us question everything we thought we knew."

Harry sighed. "I'll speak to them, but I can't guarantee that it will do much good. They're my allies, not my slaves."

Blair opened his mouth as if to say something, then shut it. He studied Harry intently, but this time, Harry couldn't tell what he was thinking. Then he nodded. "It's been a pleasure speaking with you, Mr. Harry," he said, voice almost succeeding in convincing Harry that he didn't find the title ridiculous at all. "If another magical attack happens, I count on you to give us warning, or at least help in dealing with it."

Harry nodded, and kept any of his feelings to himself. He _had_ rather announced himself as the spokesman for the entire British magical world. Blair might not receive the help he was demanding, and he knew it, but he would treat Harry with all the responsibility he was claiming to have.

"Good day, sir," he said, and removed the locking and silencing spells he'd used on the room, calling the Pensieve to him and shrinking it again as he did so. He had just vanished behind _Extabesco plene_ when the door burst open and several people swept into the office, all babbling at once.

"Sir, what happened? We—"

"Couldn't hear you, sir! Were you—"

"There's a group claiming responsibility for the attacks in Cornwall now, sir, say they'll have control of Parliament by sunrise—"

Harry slipped out in the confusion, once they cleared the door, and took a deep breath as he hurried out of the Muggle building. At least he had a better idea where he was going, this time, since he'd found his way through.

He'd invited the British Prime Minister into the war zone, and he wasn't entirely sure if he would be thankful for it later.

For now, he thought it necessary, and he would do what he could to defend the decision, and to insure it played out well, and to live with the consequences if it all fell down.


	24. I Will Take From You Everything

**Warning: Cliffhanger. **

**Chapter Eighteen: I Will Take From You Everything That You Have Loved**

"Good morning, Mother."

Narcissa lifted her eyes from behind the _Daily Prophet_ long enough to nod to Draco. "Good morning, Draco."

Draco took a seat at the kitchen table and stared blearily at nothing until Narcissa slid a cup of tea in front of him. Then he drained it, and sat there once again staring at nothing. His mind felt like a misty sea full of icebergs, grinding and drifting, and he didn't know how to make them stop drifting or dissipate the mist. Things between himself and Harry had been in a state of low-level war for the past six days. He still thought that Harry should have used the communication spell from Cornwall to say that he was well, and had survived the rain, before he returned. He had to admit, grudgingly, that Harry was right about the wisdom of taking someone with him. No one else could have added much to Harry's success with the rain, and they would have hindered him badly when it came to Hawthorn.

But he did worry about Harry still, and he did think that Harry was pulling away from relying on others again, convinced he had to do everything in the war himself, and he did think that the decision to show the wizarding world to Muggles was the wrong one. He had tried to explain as much to Harry last night. Harry had listened politely enough, but with the tightness around his nostrils that said he attributed most of what Draco said to love of himself and anti-Muggle prejudice. The one emotion he valued, the other he didn't, and even the emotion he valued he seemed prone to treating as something of lesser importance.

Draco was in an agony of frustration, caught in a limbo between completely agreeing with Harry—which would be wrong, because he didn't _want_ to—and finding the words to persuade Harry to his side, which wouldn't come either. Harry had been extraordinarily busy with meetings and research the last few days, and trying to figure out where Voldemort would attack next, and seemed to assign their bickering a low priority.

Well, Draco didn't.

_Especially with the sixth courting ritual coming up, _he thought, and once again drained his cup of tea. Then he blinked, and realized he didn't know how the tea had got there. He saw his mother putting down her wand, though, so he could guess.

"I wonder what, specifically," Narcissa said, as if to the paper, "is making you so unhappy, Draco. You've had arguments with Harry before. What makes this one different?"

Draco didn't answer. He was staying with his mother in Silver-Mirror for now, supposedly to comfort her about the devastating loss of Lucius and read about wards so that he could help prepare Malfoy Manor as a safehouse. In reality, she comforted him more than he did her, and simply ignored the idea of the safehouse as gracefully as she ignored most things having to do with the Muggle world. She didn't even speak to him about Harry unless he began the conversation. Draco supposed she was letting him have the peace and space and time he needed to think about things himself, and sort them out.

But now she was speaking to him about Harry, beginning the conversation. Draco tried to pull himself out of his misery long enough to make a coherent reply.

"I feel as if Harry's growing further and further away from me," he said quietly, staring at the table, "like this is one argument that we won't resolve. And I've told him about the courting ritual that will happen on his birthday, but he's simply shrugged and said that he'll be there when it happens, since he agreed to it. I don't think that he cares about me next to the war, Mother."

"He certainly does not express it in the best way," Narcissa said calmly. "But I have been through similar situations with your father before, Draco."

Draco checked the impulse to stare at her. This was the most neutral way he'd heard her mention Lucius since the Dark Lord recalled him. He forced himself to stand and examine the loaf of bread on the counter, so that he could select which pieces he wanted for toast. "Really?" he asked, when he thought he could sound interested but not desperate.

"Yes," said Narcissa. "We are both very stubborn, much as you and Harry are, and neither of us want to admit that we are wrong in case it is a sign of weakness. And sometimes a duel is not appropriate." Draco imagined she was smiling when she said those words, though he knew she wouldn't be if he turned around and checked. "What I did in such cases was to take the moral high ground. It did not matter how eloquent my words were. I simply told him that I still loved him, that he made me unhappy, but that I did not wish to make him unhappy. I insisted on a conversation, and if the only impression we could make on one another was to agree never to have that subject at the dinner table again, that is what we did."

Draco turned and frowned over his shoulder at her, even as he took two pieces of bread from the loaf. "That sounds like playing on his guilt. I've used the tactic enough with Harry that I don't want to use it again."

Narcissa gave a small laugh, or a sound that Draco supposed might have been called a laugh in another woman. Her eyes shone like icicles. "That is not what I did to Lucius," she said. "He had no guilt to play on. I simply told him the truth. It is unlikely that Harry realizes how unhappy you are, Draco, or the source of your unhappiness, or he would not have let you suffer this long."

"Sometimes I feel as if he doesn't value me at all," Draco muttered, scowling at the bread. "I _know_ that's not true, but—he makes promises and doesn't keep them, like deciding to rely on us, or pay attention to our bond even in the midst of war. And he lets people like Kanerva Stormgale get away with threatening me."

"Then tell him that," said Narcissa.

"I have," said Draco, casting a household charm he'd learned perforce to toast the bread, since living by the labor of house elves now felt odd. "He simply insists that he does care for me."

"Ah," said Narcissa. "Then you have not found the right tone. Do not say it as an accusation, my son. Say it as the truth, and force him to use Legilimency if necessary to examine your perspective. Or the spell you invented that puts him into a Pensieve and forces him into your mindset."

"But then he'll apologize, and make more promises, and promises are a temporary solution with him." Draco jabbed his wand at the bread, and flame nearly broke out over one piece. Draco hastily stopped that, and retracted his wand to the proper distance to spread the same even warmth all over the toast. "I don't know what to do to make it a permanent solution."

"There is no permanent solution," said Narcissa. "Any more than there was a way to stop Lucius and I from dueling for the rest of our lives, or make the rift that happened between us impossible." Her voice had altered, and when Draco looked at her, she appeared more as the mother he remembered than she had for the past two months. "I thought your time with Harry had taught you more of change than that, Draco."

Draco resisted the urge to hiss or stamp his foot or do something childish and less than eloquent. His bread had finished toasting. He went to the chilled cabinet which held the butter, glad that Harry hadn't got around to forbidding him conveniences like that yet. "I know that what he does will change," he said. "Freeing one magical species is never the same as freeing another. He's convinced me of that. But—isn't the whole _point_ of the joining ceremony so that we have one thing in our lives that will never alter?"

"No," said Narcissa, and Draco flinched a bit at how stern her voice had become. "Being married—or joined—is harder than being in love, and there are more ways of doing it, I think. You'll be together, Draco, but that doesn't mean endless sunshine and no arguments."

"I didn't think it meant no arguments," said Draco weakly, aware that he wasn't expressing himself well. _If I was just as good at making speeches as Harry is, this wouldn't be a problem, _he thought in frustration. "I just—I did think it meant no large rifts, I suppose. I can't see myself ever separating from Harry the way you separated from Father."

"And yet, things like this happen," said Narcissa. "What you must do, Draco, is let go of your conviction that every change is a permanent one and that you will be in this argument, or this joining ritual, or this stage of your bond, forever. Harry has accepted that, I think, which is why he worries less over your arguments than you do. But this is something that you have to come to terms with on your own. The way I suggested approaching Harry _requires_ that you truly believe the breach between you can be healed. Only then you will you approach him with some other tone than accusation or resignation that you have to give in to him yet again to get what you want."

Draco nibbled his lip. "And if I do think that he really is neglecting me, and that I shouldn't have to spend so much time asking for what I want?" he asked at last.

"Then say it," Narcissa said. "_Without_ whinging."

Draco sighed. He was having to grow up again, and this time, he didn't have something like Calibrid Opalline's threat to marry Harry which would propel the growth for him. It had to be his own decision, his own intent that drove him, and the goal was harder to meet.

_Me alone._

He didn't know if he could do it today, he admitted, as he buttered his toast and then sat down to eat. But he would think on it. There were still a few days between now and the joining ritual. He had time to come to terms with what his mother suggested, and think up ways to say what he really wanted and which would make Harry listen to him.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

"What do you think?" Thomas asked, holding the stone up.

Harry examined it, and smiled. "I think it's perfect."

That brought a shine to Thomas's eyes that hadn't often been there since his wife died. "Thank you, Harry," he said, and turned the stone from hand to hand. "I didn't mean to make it look like a shell," he added thoughtfully. "Or so bright. But it makes a nice counter to the gray stone."

Harry nodded, his eyes fastened to the tiny white scallop Thomas held, which glittered as if made of quartz. This was the counter to Voldemort's ward-draining stones, which Thomas had finally devised after a month of intense work. And, small as it was, it shone with power, and it would now be easier to create others like them and embed them in the walls of the safehouses.

"I never tried to _make_ something just like this before," Thomas said softly, his eyes fastened on the shell. "I mostly used my knowledge to learn new spells, or to help me make decisions, like Declaring for the Dark. I'm not sure if it's different, but it feels different to me."

Harry understood. As long as putting his knowledge to practical use was a choice, Thomas was still free from at least some of the implications of the war. Now it appeared to have swallowed his life as it had swallowed Priscilla's.

Harry resisted the urge to touch him on the shoulder and say everything would be all right. It never would be again, not the way it would have been had Priscilla lived. "How are your children?" he asked.

"Recovering," said Thomas. "Melissa took it hardest, but she—well, she knows her mother is _dead_. Rose is helping with the others. She's always been the most adult. And Robert is going to be a seventh-year here. In Ravenclaw, did you know? The Headmistress had the Hat Sort him yesterday. He's studying. It's a way of putting aside grief."

"And you, Thomas?"

The man turned a gentle, melancholy smile on him. "I miss her," he answered. "But I'll live without her."

Harry opened his mouth to say something, but Thomas had turned away, moving towards a table on the other side of the room. He'd chosen a chamber in the dungeons to make his area of study, and it was already scattered with old, heavy tables and sturdy bookshelves. Harry was sure at least one Head of Slytherin House had had offices here.

"I need to make sure that the scallops can hold up under pressure," he said. "If you'd excuse me, Harry? So far, they always explode if someone else is in the room when I'm testing them."

Harry nodded and shut the door behind him as gently as he could. He wasn't sure if Thomas's claim about the shells was true or not, but it was a harmless lie if it wasn't, and if it would make the shells stronger, it would end in protecting the refugees in the safehouses more efficiently.

He took one step up the dungeon corridor, and a wash of intense tingling assaulted him, as if he'd been sitting with all his limbs curled beneath him and they'd all gone to sleep. Harry shivered and hugged himself tight, leaning against the wall as he closed his eyes. The tingles radiated down from his scalp, along the bridge of his nose, and centered somewhere around his mouth. Another line moved up to join them, beginning at his heart and using his sternum as their route. Harry stood with eyes shut until the mad tingling went away.

"Harry?"

_Just whom I don't want to speak with right now, _Harry thought, and opened his eyes. He knew what the sensations were perfectly well—his magic stirring as he approached his seventeenth birthday—but they always made him feel nervous and tense after they occurred, and Merlin knew that speaking to Draco was difficult enough without that. "Draco," he said. "I was just going to the Room of Requirement to supervise Ginny's latest dueling session."

"I want to talk to you," said Draco quietly.

One look into his eyes, and Harry found himself swallowing his retort. Draco's eyes were intense, and there was no hint of petulance in the way he held himself, leaning slightly forward so that he could look into Harry's face. Talking with Ginny and watching the progress of the local witches and wizards as they learned—which he'd already done that morning, anyway—suddenly seemed much less interesting.

"All right," he said. "Here?"

"No better place," said Draco. "Given that several Slytherins returning for next year are crowded into the common room now, and _someone_ would bring down any silencing spells we put on our room." Harry nodded; the few fifth- and sixth-year Slytherins whose parents would let them attend this term had been cautious enough to send them a full month early, perhaps for shelter as much as study, and they currently milled through the common room in search of something to do. Draco leaned one shoulder against the wall and looked at Harry thoughtfully. "Do you know that it took me so long to settle this argument because I thought it would never end?"

"You did?" Harry blinked. He had _known_ it would end, though he wished it could have been earlier.

"Yes," Draco said, and scratched the back of his neck. "And only later did I realize how stupid that was. But I felt that way." He leaned forward again. "And now I feel as if you're neglecting me, making other things not simply equal in importance but more important than our joining."

It would have been so easy to take offense—but not when Draco spoke frankly and in that tone, without either apologies to call on Harry's guilt or self-defenses of himself to spark anger. Harry nodded slowly.

"I would like to know," Draco said, his head lifting as if he were putting on a show before an audience, "what you see when you look into the future. Not the images the room in Hogwarts showed us before the first joining ritual. Not anything you _think_ I want to hear. What you actually see. What does our future look like to you?"

"Difficult," said Harry, giving Draco the same blameless honesty Draco had given him. "Filled with arguments, both between us and ones where we stand back-to-back against the world." He hesitated, wondering if the next word he wanted to use was too soppy, but Draco's gaze drew it out of him. "Unending."

Draco gave a shallow nod. "That is what I wanted to hear, Harry," he breathed. "And what do you need to make you remember it more often?"

"You mentioning it more often," Harry admitted. "It _is_ something that I could lose in the chaos of the war."

"I've used the Dreamer's Crown a few times now," said Draco, stepping back enough that Harry didn't feel crowded. "Each time, it shows my worst decision would be badgering you about losing our bond to the war. And yet I continue to do it. I did it that night you came back after Cornwall, and even if anger and worry made me do it, I should have been more considerate and waited. Forgive me?"

Harry blinked again. He'd never heard Draco ask for forgiveness in that tone of voice before. There was—not submission in it, not manipulation, but simple honesty.

_And that might be the deepest manipulation of all._

But, even if it was, Harry couldn't see himself caring. He felt far more interested in the resolution of this argument than he had been in the resolution of their last few. Then, part of the reason he had wanted to cover up the breach was so that he didn't have yet _another_ thing to worry about while he tried to lead this war. Now, he wanted to reconcile because he wanted more of Draco's presence like this in his life: asking for what he wanted, offering what apologies were needed and no more than that, reaching out of his own free will.

"I do," he said. "Thank you for coming to me and speaking like this, when you meant it."

Draco's eyes flashed as if in triumph, but he was certainly allowed to feel triumph when this had worked so well, Harry thought. He felt a delicate happiness as well, barely distinguishable from quiet satisfaction. If Draco had a relationship with him that was equal and based on free will, it meant something of his principles _could_ survive the war. He hadn't sacrificed them all with his actions so far, and Draco was learning to live by them because he wanted to.

"Good," Draco said quietly. "These last few days have been difficult for me, Harry. I truly had to confront the fact that everything could change again in a week's time, and I missed you."

"I missed you, as well," Harry said softly. He would give more than that if Draco wanted, dress it up in more elaborate words, but it was the truth. He wanted Draco at his side for more reasons than needing his emotional support in the war. He wanted Draco at his side because he wanted him there.

"And besides," Draco added, with a small smile, "it would have been hard to perform this next joining ritual if we were angry with each other."

"What a difference from February," Harry muttered, and then shuddered all over again as the tingles started, this time around his wrists, as if he wore iron cuffs. Draco watched in curiosity. He might have guessed this was happening, Harry thought, as he fought off the irritating sensation, but he hadn't been close enough to Harry all week to watch it happen.

"What's that?" Draco asked, when it subsided.

"My magic," said Harry, as casually as he could. "Getting ready for my birthday."

Draco's face altered, and suddenly he looked more like the gleeful boy Harry had known in second and third year, as he started discovering the full extent of Harry's magic. "I _knew_ that you wouldn't feel a little twitch the way you thought you would," he said. "If nothing else, the magic needs to expand into different areas of your body." He wrapped an arm around Harry's waist, propelling him further down the hallway. "We'll have to have a festival, you realize."

"Why?" Harry asked plaintively. He did hope that his birthday passed without fuss. Not only was it the time of his next joining ritual with Draco, it was Connor's rise to his full power and adult status as well, and of course there was the research and the strategizing that had to be done every single day—if Voldemort didn't choose that day for an all-out attack, which Harry had placed high odds on. "Draco, I don't want one."

Draco glanced at him intently, seeming to listen to his words instead of disregard them as usual. "Harry, have you noticed the way people are looking at you lately?"

"When I'm suffering from an attack of magic, or not?" Harry muttered, arching his shoulders as a ripple moved through them.

Draco rolled his eyes. "I didn't mean your actions, prat. I meant that they're looking to you as a leader. They're willing to trust and follow you unless something spectacularly bad happens, but you can increase their trust with a festival like this. Give everyone something to cheer on, relax over, bond over. It's certainly a worthy enough occasion. You aren't just an ordinary seventeen-year-old wizard coming into his power, Harry, and in your best moments you know it. This symbolizes your having all the strength you can possibly command, the strength that you finally need to defeat Voldemort. I think people would be happy to celebrate that."

"I still think my full magic has broken free from its bonds," Harry argued feebly, and then bent nearly double when a pulse seemed to settle in his chest.

Draco gave him a patient look that was still there when he straightened. "Do you really?" he asked, but not as if he were interested in Harry's opinion. "I promise, Harry, Connor can share this festival."

"All right, all right," Harry muttered. "But I want to register my displeasure at the idea."

"My mother won't care," said Draco, his face bright. "She's already been planning."

Harry gave him a glare and some vituperative mutters, but now they were back in a place where those mutters could actually be taken as a teasing complaint, and Harry was more than grateful for it.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry woke up the morning of July thirty-first, and blinked. From what Draco had told him about the sixth joining ritual, he was sure it would already have begun when he opened his eyes, but his sight still seemed to be normal. He sat up slowly, turning his head from side to side, and then bent over with a sharp gasp as pain and energy raked like claws down his shoulders, glittering as they seemed to open skin. He knew that his magic wasn't _really_ wounding him, which only made it harder to take.

Draco was awake in a few minutes, laying his hand on Harry's shoulder. "Are you all right, Harry?"

"Just—fine," Harry managed, around a gasp. Warmth curled around his neck and flowed like blood into the imaginary wounds. He had time for a breath of clear air, though, and a thought of worry. He really hadn't expected his magic to react this strongly. Why was it doing it at all? Would he suffer some unexpected agony when his magic fully manifested at the exact minute of his birth, sometime around noon?

He had no idea. He knew Connor had been experiencing upsurges of his magic, too, in the past twenty-four hours, but nothing as acutely painful as this. He bowed his head, closed his eyes, and ducked beneath the waves of it, shoving it away and forcing himself to concentrate on something else, until it departed. When he opened his eyes, Draco was gently caressing his cheeks, staring hard at him.

"It's just a sign that you're going to be an exceptionally powerful wizard, Harry, that's all," he said comfortingly.

"I'm already an exceptionally powerful wizard," Harry muttered, leaning into the caressing hands. "Besides, you said it yourself: this isn't an _increase_ of one's magic. It's more like—I don't know, like the power finally settling into its proper place. Like a child growing into its limbs. And why hasn't the ritual started yet?"

Draco chuckled. "Because it starts when we kiss for the first time on this day." He leaned forward until his lips were an inch away from Harry's. "Are you ready?"

Harry nodded, then closed his eyes as another wave of prickly pain assaulted him.

"You're sure?" Draco sounded concerned. "We can wait until you've manifested, Harry, if you want."

"I don't want to let this stupid thing defeat me," Harry said grimly. "Yes, Draco, come on." When Draco hesitated further, he opened his eyes and leaned forward, deliberately taking control of the kiss as he didn't do very often.

Light broke between their lips, across their eyes, across their faces. Harry gasped and tried to put an arm over his eyes, but the kiss lingered, and he couldn't move. He _could_ see shades of the light, though: white as apple blossoms, the delicate red of blooming roses, green as summer leaves. All living colors, the way that Draco had warned him they would be.

When he pulled back at last, he could hardly look at Draco for a few moments, but he did study the colors blazing from him.

Draco's skin seemed to have turned to crystal, and he shone with piled fires as if they reflected from jeweled facets in him, flashes of diamond and sapphire and topaz. Those were his good points, Harry knew; the diamond light meant, among other things, a tendency to love fiercely and not let go of what he felt that devotion for. The sapphire was a tendency to plan ahead and care about his future, and the topaz the ability to give up things he valued for the comfort of his loved one.

This was the Firing of the Virtues, which would make everyone they looked at today rather like a stained-glass window, setting all their virtues ablaze and open to sight while dimming their flaws into shadows. The effect would lessen after a few minutes of exposure. Draco had promised that he and Harry could watch the festival from a distance at first, so he would have a chance to get used to the colors the celebrants glowed before he ventured among them.

Now, he squinted and opened first one eye, then the other, until the intensity stopped. Then he smiled wryly at Draco. "I wish I could see yourself," he said.

"The same," Draco whispered, and slid a hand along Harry's cheek, shuddering. "I'm afraid that we don't have time for sex, though," he went on in a mournful voice. "The festival starts in forty minutes."

"Time for a shower, though?" Harry asked, and extended his hand, which to his vision was normal. One couldn't see one's own colors during the Firing of the Virtues.

Draco brightened, and followed him willingly into the loo.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Unsurprisingly, when Draco and Narcissa had suggested the idea of a festival to the Headmistress—ostensibly for Harry's birthday, of course, but really more as an excuse for everyone inside the castle to celebrate and remove their minds from what lurked outside—she had adopted the idea. Also unsurprisingly, Draco thought, holding Harry around the waist as they both squinted from just beyond the entrance to the Great Hall, she had decorated the Great Hall as if this were a high day of the Light.

The walls were hung with—triangles of glass, backed with other triangles of glass. That was the best description Draco could come up with for them, and he did not wish to know where McGonagall had got them. They each flickered with a leaping fire of some kind that sent out beams of honest sunlight, mingling with the sunlight that came through the windows.

Opposite the glass triangles, what looked like large mirrors in rainbow hues spun on strings and reflected their light. The effect was a shimmering haze in the hall, with hardly one shadow left. And, of course, because McGonagall was keen on House unity, there were six points at which the crossing beams were enchanted to reflect a pair of House symbols shining together: a golden lion with a silver snake around its neck, a bronze eagle perched on the back of a yellow badger, and so on. It was rather sickening, but at least the long tables filled with food helped make up for that, Draco thought, and so did the genuinely cheerful voices of the refugees thronging between them.

His eye fell on the one table that didn't contain food and drink, and he smirked. He wondered what Harry would make of it, by the time he finally managed to see through the light and noticed it.

"Draco." Harry's voice, right on cue, was flat and displeased. "Did _you_ do that?"

"I may have contributed," said Draco loftily, curling the arm further around Harry's waist and sweeping him into the room. "But I in no way arranged for this. I suppose there were many people who just wanted to wish you a happy birthday, Harry. Well, you and your brother," he added fairly. One end of the large, gift-piled table held a string of presents for Connor.

"There are too many—"

"Happy birthday, Harry!" came the chorus from many throats, all of them people who shone in the Firing of the Virtues, overwhelming Harry's objection. Harry shook his head, sighed, gave Draco a charged look, and moved to greet them. He looked awkward, but Draco found he didn't particularly care. Harry would have looked awkward in a gathering of six people. This was a day when he shouldn't mind being made a fuss of. He was finally of age, and some of the people who had looked down on him as a child in the past would listen to him now.

Besides, other people needed this.

Draco saw the way their eyes focused on Harry, and, even more interestingly, how their virtues flared wildly when they saw him. Harry might not actively encourage other people to demonstrate good behavior, but they did it anyway, looking up to him as a hero and an inspiration. What he meant to cause was perhaps ultimately less important than what he did cause.

Draco was smug that no one else got to see Harry shining as he did, though. Harry was a layered bank of candles to his sight, topaz and emerald—self-sacrifice and consideration, which Draco knew he didn't have very much of himself, if any at all—and onyx, which stood for hard decisions made and passed. There were other colors under than those, but Draco had all day to gaze at them.

And other people, too, he admitted grumpily, looking sideways at his brother-in-law, who sat with his arm around his Gryffindor girlfriend. Topaz there, no surprise, and rubies for courage. One thing the Firing of Virtues was supposed to do was remind the joining pair of the larger world beyond their rituals, the world they would be a part of as adults by the time their dance was done.

It reminded Draco that other people existed and had their good points, yes. That didn't mean he had to like it.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

By the time it was almost noon, Harry's arm hurt from being shaken, and his mouth hurt from smiling—even laughing—and his hands hurt from opening gifts. He was starting to think his skin would hurt from blushing, too, any moment. So many of the gifts were helpful, such as books on rare potions and spells that the givers imagined might help him defeat Voldemort, or enchanted necklaces and blades and rings and other treasures that would help him move silently or see his enemy from a distance. Harry knew that he could at least afford to bring other people with him more easily now, even if his own magic would protect him more efficiently than the vast majority of the gifts.

A few of the younger children who had come to Hogwarts for safety had given him books stolen from the Hogwarts Library. Harry gravely thanked them and promised to use the library as a storage place for them, under the stern eye of Madam Pince. It was a harmless enough lie, and it made their faces light up.

Fire and light surrounded him, and he wanted badly to hide under a bed and never come up for air again. He was used to being in a room with at least one person who disliked him and thought he wasn't fulfilling his duty. Having this many people all focused on him, thinking of him as the Boy-Who-Lived and their hope, was exhausting. Add to that the ritual that made them shine, and the amount of goodness and inspiration in this room alone was enough to make Harry feel humbled.

Connor had plenty of gifts to open as well, for which Harry was grateful. Parvati had got him something that made him flush dully and hide it again. Harry wasn't about to ask what that was.

He knew when Connor opened Harry's gift to him, though. He stared at it for a moment, then threw back his head and laughed loudly enough that the Hall rang with it and many people glanced curiously in his direction.

"What makes you think I _need_ this, you prat?" he challenged, and held up the set of bristles that was inside the box. They were supposed to attach to a broom and make it go even faster. Of course, with the Firebolt he had, which Harry had got him for Christmas, Connor already flew faster than most people, and his skill on a broom had always been better than the vast majority's. The gift was an insult, in a way. Harry had intended that.

Now, Harry half-shrugged, and made his voice as innocent as possible. "You won your match with Slytherin last year too easily. Don't want you getting cocky and losing to Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw."

Connor gravely separated a quarter of the bristles from the rest, and threw them at his head. Then he flicked his wand, and a gift rose from beside him and sailed over to Harry. "Here, then, you can open this next."

Harry picked it up. It was his gift from Connor, a small but fairly heavy box. He heard a sleek clicking from inside it, like marbles. Curious, he undid the lid, and blinked when a cascade of round, colored objects flew into the air.

They _were_ marbles, or at least they looked like them. They arranged themselves in front of him, and began to sing in a high-pitched chorus.

"_When life brews you a lousy potion,_

_And trouble swamps you like an ocean,_

_Don't you dare frown,_

_Or say that you're down,_

_Because the Singing Cheerful Objects are in motion!_"

Harry stared. Each marble had a smiling face painted on it, some wizards, some witches, and some fat figures in what were presumably meant to be Muggle clothes. They circled Harry's head, then fell down with a pattering around him and stuck to his robes, radiating warmth. Then they started to purr like Kneazles.

"Connor, what on earth—"

"For when you're not feeling that well." Connor shrugged, but his eyes were full of mirth. "From Fred and George. Don't you like them?"

The marbles purred and cuddled closer. Harry couldn't stop his laughter, so he didn't try.

His laughter turned midway through to a choked cry, though, when the minute he'd been born struck and his magic began to blaze through his body.

Harry quickly discovered he'd been wrong about this being a simple process. His magic headed through his body like a tide flowing up an estuary, rooting out small pockets of power all over and carrying them along in the general flood. Harry dropped his head into his arms and started to shake. He felt Draco's hand start to touch his back, and then draw away; he probably remembered that Harry hadn't been able to touch him when he was going through his own transition.

And a transition it was. Behind the feeling like flowing water came fire. Harry felt warmth rake him, tenderly, from the skin down to the vitals. He imagined he must be blazing hard enough to hurt Draco's eyes by now. His power shifted around in him, and then came to rest like Fawkes on a perch, settling firmly into place amid the dreaming glow of the flames.

He felt more—aware of himself than he had before. It was as if the barriers that he usually kept his magic behind had been lowered, but only for him. Now, when he looked up and blinked, he _knew_ what his magic could accomplish. He could see the trees and the deep, rich colors that his magic usually radiated when it was free at any time he wanted. He knew exactly what his power was, and what its limitations were.

Or he thought he did. He was stunned to find himself closer to the floor than before, and in an unfamiliar body. He took a step forward, and what made the motion wasn't a hand or a foot, but a paw.

Draco laughed above him, and stooped over him. Harry looked up at him and hissed, which didn't stop Draco from ruffling his ears. "Your magic had to go somewhere, it seems, Harry," he said. "You're in your Animagus form."

Harry shook his head uncomfortably, dislodging Draco's hand, and waved his tail as he called on his magic. The air chilled in front of him, creating a temporary mirror of ice so that he could stare at himself. He was a larger lynx than he had expected, his coat shining in the light of the Great Hall almost as red as a Weasley's hair, with shades of brown and fawn and straw woven in further down. His tail stood straight up behind him like a guard dog's. His eyes were brilliant green.

Perhaps because he had changed this way, he thought, he could still see in color. Or were felines supposed to be able to see in color? He couldn't remember.

"Change back now," Draco demanded. "Or I'll put the cute little kitty on my lap and hold him there."

Harry sneezed at him in disgust, then closed his eyes and concentrated hard, remembering his human body, and, above all, the new feeling of the magic slinking through it. In moments, his body flowed and reshaped itself and changed, and then he was crouching on the floor, luckily still wearing his clothes. He stood up and swatted at his robes, ignoring Draco's attempt to pet him.

He sat down with great dignity, ignoring the laughter and the catcalls, and randomly opened the first gift in front of him.

It turned out to be Draco's.

Harry stared at the document inside. Then he turned and stared at Draco in turn, who looked half-proud and half-smug, and a bit embarrassed.

"I thought you couldn't access your vaults yet," Harry whispered.

"I can't," said Draco cheerfully. "I haven't bought it. I just contacted the owner, and he agreed to send a description. If we buy it—well, correction, if _I_ buy it for _you_, since it's supposed to be a gift, after all—then I'll ask the goblins to challenge the Ministry for control of my vault."

Harry lifted the document out with hands that trembled. He couldn't help it. Knowing that Draco didn't see any problem with his fame, and in fact wanted him to take advantage of it more often than he did, just made the gift more special.

It was a wizarding photograph, and a description, as Draco had said, of a tiny cottage somewhere out in the wilds of Wales, or maybe Ireland—no, definitely Wales, Harry found as he read on. It was on an Unplottable piece of land, and the person who owned it controlled the wards absolutely. No one could visit there but someone to whom the owner had given both verbal and written permission. All cameras, including wizarding ones, spontaneously failed. There were special wards to discourage spying artificial animals and Animagi and other magic that people might use to get around the wards. If Harry chose to live there, he would have absolute privacy.

The cottage's name was Aerie, from the description. Harry smiled and leaned over to kiss Draco.

His brother cried out then, though Harry finished the kiss before he turned around. He was half-eager to see if Connor would manage to assume his own Animagus form, a boar, but it seemed he wasn't that lucky.

He did shake in Parvati's arms, leaning back with his cheeks flushed and his eyes, when he opened them, shining. And Harry became aware of a new kind of power in the room: cheerful, brash, hearty, and very, very Gryffindor. The only time he had felt anything like it before was the night that Connor had saved him from going to Voldemort. Now Connor was come fully into that kind of determination, that magic that said, "Bugger this," to obstacles and bulled straight through.

And, of course, he had come into it fifteen minutes after Harry did, being fifteen minutes younger.

"Welcome to adulthood, little brother," Harry felt free to tease, when Connor opened his eyes.

"At least I didn't turn into a kitten," Connor retorted, which made those who could hear it laugh.

Harry started to respond, but the sound of owls' wings startled him. He looked up, searching, and inwardly wishing that no correspondence would intrude on this celebration. Then he reminded himself how petulant that wish was. He'd had nearly two hours free of the pressure of the war. Surely that ought to be enough.

Two owls, both gray ones, soared through the windows of the Great Hall. One of them made for Harry, one for Connor. Harry felt a bit sick at the thought of gifts from Evan Rosier.

But he found, when the owl settled in front of him and held out its leg, that the letter bore an official Ministry seal.

And it was in a black envelope.

_Like the letter that came for the Weasleys, about Percy, _Harry thought, and again Voldemort's words rang in his head.

_I will take from you everything that you have loved._

With somewhat nerveless fingers, Harry reached out, grasped the envelope, and opened it.


	25. Intermission: An Old Debt Repaid

**Warning: Severe gore. **

**Intermission: An Old Debt Repaid**

The new wards on Tullianum hadn't really done much in the way of protecting the prison, Indigena thought.

The problem was that the people weaving the wards did not _understand_ the earth their Ministry was built on. They conceived of it as emotionless, motionless rock and stone and soil, even after Indigena had burst in the first time by convincing her plants to grow up through it and the earth to bear the tendrils, vines, and flowers. They assumed stronger wards underground were enough.

_But not when one can speak to the earth, _Indigena thought. This time, it was even easier, as the last time she opened Tullianum she had still been mostly human. Now the soil felt her coming and began to reach out, currents of warmth traveling through the dirt, the stone rippling in tiny tremors that no other human would ever notice because they wouldn't reach the surface. They did not pull back simply because she willed them to, but they were ready and willing to listen to her, because she treated them like equals.

When they learned what she wanted, they pulled back in a long, smooth split like a skirt tearing, and took the wards with them. The wards could not float in air as wards in buildings could. Here, they were anchored to stones and dirt, a solid medium, rather like wards underwater, and if their anchors parted, they perforce parted.

Indigena turned and gestured down the tunnel her vines had opened behind her. The others followed her upwards, treating it like a mixture of corridor and ladder. Sylvan, Adalrico, and Hawthorn were a small force, but Voldemort hadn't felt the need to send a larger one. Only those with some need should go to Tullianum—with the exception of Indigena, who was doing it partially to prove to her Lord that she could lead a successful mission.

This one was going to be successful, Indigena knew, as Hawthorn and Adalrico climbed out of the cracked stone floor into a silent prison. The wards weren't sending out alarms, and Indigena's plants, seeking people not inside the cells, had taken the Aurors standing guard. The whole of Tullianum's central corridor was a mass of dancing green tendrils and disturbed dirt.

Indigena waited until both Hawthorn and Adalrico looked at her, and then nodded. "You know what to do," she said. "You have come for your vengeance. Go and claim it."

Adalrico closed his eyes and whispered a detection spell. A door a few paces away from him glowed, and Adalrico held out a ward-stone towards it. In moments, the protective wards were gone, and Adalrico had the door open with a simple _Alohomora._

Inside, Pharos Starrise looked up, but only for a moment. Then his eyes shut, and his head tilted back so that the cords in his neck stood out, and his mouth opened in a silent scream as the magical weapon Adalrico carried exerted a punishing force that Indigena couldn't feel.

Hawthorn, meanwhile, had turned towards the Aurors caught in the tendrils. She could not readily identify her attackers from that night when she'd been arrested for being a werewolf, Indigena knew, but that didn't matter. She would slaughter Aurors, and that would hurt the Ministry, and give the woman a taste of vengeance satisfied.

That was the reason Voldemort had sent both of them on this mission, in fact: to strengthen the hold of their hatred over them by having them confront the objects of that hatred. By that alone, Indigena knew that Voldemort had decided to sacrifice Lucius Malfoy, though what he was going to do with him Indigena didn't know as yet.

"What prisoners can we have, cousin?" Sylvan asked her.

Indigena whispered a quick detection spell of her own, and a slender vine, threaded through with red in all its leaves, arched itself like a cracking whip and struck two doors. "Anyone but the people in those cells," she answered. "Those are mine."

Sylvan gave her a curious glance. "I was unaware that you hated anyone."

Indigena shook her head. "This is not for someone who wronged _me_. It is the only thing I can do to make up for a helplessness I once felt."

Her cousin nodded, and then turned, eliminated the wards on another cell, and pulled out the woman inside. For a moment, he cupped her cheeks between his hands. Indigena was unsure the woman actually saw him. After a few years here, with nothing to do but stare at blank walls for a majority of the day, most prisoners went mad.

Sylvan must have found what he was looking for in her eyes, however, because he sighed and closed his own, half-relaxing. A series of small cuts opened in a circle around the sides of his face, and out of them came glittering spikes that shone like, and might actually be, diamond, for all that Indigena knew. The spikes came down and fastened in similar places on the woman's face. Sylvan jerked his head back, eyes still closed, and tugged the woman's face off like a mask.

When her lipless mouth began to scream, he laid her down on the floor and went to work, chanting the words of a long Latin spell as he wove the blood magic.

Indigena shook her head as she pursued her course to the first door that her detection spell had indicated. Sylvan and Oaken maintained their invulnerability through an ongoing series of unwilling sacrifices. That was the reason they had joined her Lord in the first place; they knew that, if Harry won, the world he created would not be hospitable to them, and he would certainly never welcome them to fight at his side.

She removed the first door by the simple expedient of asking a few of the green tendrils in the hall to wrench it off its hinges. They did so, and then began tossing the door from one thicket to another, playing tag. Indigena smiled. They were among the most playful plants she had ever invented, a side effect of having the exuberance to break through solid stone.

Inside, Lily Potter started up from her bed and stared.

"Hello," said Indigena cheerfully. "I suppose you know already that I'm a Death Eater. Indigena Yaxley. And I've come to punish you for what you did to Harry in the past." She felt a slow green satisfaction uncurl in her. The reason her Lord had agreed to let her have James and Lily was so that their deaths would hurt Harry—he would kill everyone Harry had ever loved, excluding his brother—but Indigena doubted that would really be the case. Harry _had_ loved his parents, but surely he did not now. And Indigena had wanted to do something like this ever since she saw Lily walk out of the courtroom with her life and illusions intact.

"You can't," said Lily, as if that would stop her somehow. She seemed to be watching around Indigena's sides, preparing to make a run for it, but the playing vines filled the whole of the door. "I've already been punished."

Indigena cocked her head. "That might be true, and if that's the case, then you shall only have a painful death. Painful, but quick. I am not at home to drawn-out torture." She looked over her shoulder and nodded, and a beautiful vine crept forward, bearing a red flower that still made Indigena's heart swell when she looked at it. Her giant variation on the sundew was a shining thing. "But first, I must see if you _have_ been punished."

The sundew lunged forward and wrapped its gently fringed tentacles around Lily before she could react, holding her motionless in a wet cocoon. Indigena nodded when she felt the flower's attention shift to her. "Now, love."

The ordinary sundew was a predatory plant whose juices dissolved the insects it captured. Indigena had adapted it so that the juices sought another prey than flesh. They trickled into Lily's body now, climbing into her bloodstream and ascending swiftly to the brain.

There, they raced into her thoughts and mingled with her memories. Indigena waited, now and then touching the sundew's stem when it wriggled at her for reassurance. Each sundew had to be made to respond to a limited range of memories, so far; it was her one regret that she hadn't been able to breed them so that they would work for many types of prey.

But then, it was not as if she had cause to use them very often, either, since they were made to dispense justice and not vengeance.

The tendrils gave a sudden and violent flex. Indigena could feel a cold smile working its way onto her face.

"No, you have not been punished at all," she said softly. "I was afraid not. Your death will be full of emotional pain, then. I am sorry," she added, while letting her expression show that she wasn't sorry at all.

"I don't know what you mean," Lily whispered, and tears were trickling down her face. "I've been punished. Let me go."

"No," said Indigena simply, and sent the second sundew in the hall to fetch James. While they waited for him, she smiled at Lily, and explained. "I was looking at your memories to see if you understood what you had done. And you did not. You've been stripped of your magic, left to rot here, denied contact with your children and your husband, and _still_ it's not enough. Still, you don't understand that what you did was wrong. So." She nodded at the sundew. "This flower shall make you understand, before you die."

"You can't do that," Lily whispered. "You _can't_."

"My dear," said Indigena gently, "many things about me are supposedly impossible. And yet I survived triple-linked blood curses, and I have come this far into a darkness that should have destroyed me. I trust that you will at least leave me this contact with the possible that I _enjoy_."

She looked up as the second sundew dragged James in, flexing all over. Yes, he did not understand, either.

"_Probo memoriter,_" she whispered, and flicked her wand.

Normally, the spell displayed a person's memories about a specific subject to the caster. But Indigena had adapted the sundews carefully, and at the command, they released the prepared memories into Lily and James's head. Her Lord had been more than glad to lend her memories of Harry in pain, including the graveyard and what he had seen in the boy's head of his past while the scar connection between them was still open.

Indigena poured those images into them—and more than the images, the feelings behind them. She let them feel every single thing they had done to their son, and, through him, to their second son and to other people. Though this justice was mostly for Harry, Indigena had some fondness for Connor as well. If they could understand how they had nearly made him useless by spoiling him so much, then she would be even more satisfied than she felt right now.

Of course, it would be hard to top the satisfaction she felt as she watched them writhe, their faces wrinkling, or as she touched the sundews and briefly caught a glimpse into the chaos of their minds. They were swirling amid black-red pain. They were face-to-face with the consequences of their actions, and the knowledge that those consequences had caused immense grief and suffering.

Indigena felt no need to let up on or modify the intensity of the memories, even when she heard Lily screaming again. Let the silly woman scream. Indigena could not change time and make her fall on her knees uttering the cries for pardon that she _should_ be giving, but she could at least make her understand before she died. If Indigena had simply killed her, then it would have been a hollow victory. Lily would have died believing herself a martyr.

She was not. Nor was she an innocent victim. Indigena had felt the longing to make her understand that ever since she'd gone to the Potters' trial in the guise of Iris Raymonds.

And now she had. The sundews had stopped pouring memories. James was staring at the far wall with eyes that looked as if he had seen the world shatter into black ash and poisonous rain. And Lily's face looked as if she had seen the Dark Lord reign triumphant and rearisen, and the Dark Lord was herself.

"Now you are punished," Indigena said softly.

James turned his head away. Lily uttered a sick sound of pain, as if she had blood stuck in her throat.

Indigena whistled.

The sundews clamped down harder, and their tendrils snaked around Lily and James, smearing their faces with sweetness, making them breathe in deliberately poisoned honey. The digestive juices in the flowers themselves simply sensed or gave memories. The tendrils acted like those of an ordinary flower, attracting and then trapping their prey.

Lily and James drowned behind a mask of honey, much as they had lived, but this time, they were aware of the rottenness that lay behind it. Indigena nodded as she let her sundews feast, and partially digest the bodies. She didn't let them have the heads. The bodies needed to be left recognizable.

That done, the sundews slithered out after her. Indigena joined Hawthorn, who was covered with blood, in the hall, and Adalrico shortly after. He was clutching a set of fingerbones. Indigena didn't ask. She knew Pharos wasn't still alive, because their Lord had forbidden Adalrico to bring him back to the burrow as a hostage.

"Where is Sylvan?" she asked, glancing around.

"Here, cousin."

Indigena turned, and saw him jogging up behind her, brushing aside ferns as he came. His face and hands dripped red-black gore thick as marmalade. His green eyes shone more brightly than they had in some time, and now and then he paused to chew something in his mouth. He nodded to her, graceful and composed even behind all the blood. "Shall we go?"

"We shall," said Indigena, and led them down again, the sundews and the vines slinking gracefully around her. The tendrils brought Lily's cell door along as a toy, partly in a reflection of Indigena's mood.

She felt better than she had in some time, and convinced there could be justice even in darkness.

_Even if the recipient does not know it._


	26. A Lock of Severed Hair

**Chapter Nineteen: A Lock of Severed Hair**

Harry knew the letter by heart almost before he finished it, because the words seemed to find echoes in his head and rebound themselves back, as if his skull were made of stone.

_July 31st, 1997_

_Dear Harry _vates:

_This letter is to inform you of the deaths of your parents, Lily and James Potter, found in their cells at Tullianum this morning murdered by Death Eaters. They were identifiable by those parts of the bodies left intact, and as soon as they can be checked for traces of Dark magic by our Aurors, their bodies will be released to your custody. We here at the Ministry are sorry for your loss._

Connor made a strangled sound, and Harry looked up to see him staring at his own letter with a similarly strangled, twisted face. A moment later, he dropped his letter on the table as he tore himself free from Parvati's arms and _ran_.

Harry stood, speaking as he moved, so that no one else would think he had to accompany them. "We've just received news that our parents were murdered," he told the room at large. "Please excuse us."

He went after Connor, navigating easily by the sound of his pounding footsteps, the only ones in the corridor; if someone who lived in Hogwarts hadn't come to the festival, Harry didn't know who they were. Connor was making for Gryffindor Tower, but he got delayed by a trick step he would ordinarily have jumped over. By the time he freed his foot, Harry had reached him.

"Harry," Connor whispered, turning his head away. "Just. Leave me alone. I can't talk to you right now."

Harry ignored him, slipping his arms around Connor's waist and bearing his brother backward until he had him cuddled against his chest. His ears picked up the sound of footsteps following them, and he wrapped the _Extabesco plene_ around them both without a thought. He didn't want to be found right now, even by Draco. No one else was likely to understand the depth of Connor's grief.

"Yes, you can," he said, running his fingers through his brother's hair. "I know that you don't think I'm sorry they died, but I am."

"Why?" Connor whispered. "They did horrible things to you, Harry. I know that, but I—I still loved them, _damn them_, and I don't expect you to feel the same way. Just—" His arms had found their way around Harry's shoulders by now, and seemed determined to clutch tight, despite his earlier words. "Just don't say anything bad about them, all right? I couldn't bear that right now."

Harry nodded against Connor's neck.

"I know that you're sorry about them the way you're sorry about anyone dying," Connor whispered. "But don't say that. Let me pretend that you're sorry because of who they were."

Harry tightened his clasp on his brother's back and said nothing. The truth was that his sorrow had more of an edge to it than that. He remembered Voldemort's words about taking everything he had loved from him too well.

The _only_ reason Lily and James had died had been because Harry had loved them once, and Voldemort was determined to reap the world of everyone like that. They weren't prime targets. They weren't people he loved now. They weren't as easy to reach as innocents wandering the countryside; it must have taken a bit of effort to prepare the Tullianum raid, as a matter of fact. But Voldemort had meant it when he said Harry's love would doom someone else, and he was proving it.

The dissatisfaction that thought created was gnawing a hole in Harry's heart, eating a small corner of it and rendering it scraps.

_Who might live, if I hadn't shown that I valued them?_

For some people, of course, it was too late; Voldemort knew full well that Harry loved Connor and Draco and Snape and oh, so many more. But there might be others, further from him, whom Voldemort would consider targets and Harry wouldn't even think to warn. They could have lived if his enemy's hatred was not so cruel and so widespread, and if Harry had been a bit more cautious about his affection.

"I didn't realize how much I hoped they would change," Connor whispered then. "Well—James, at least. Not Lily. I'd given up hope of Lily. But as long as he lived, I thought there was the chance he might owl someday, asking to see me—us—and t ell us he was sorry, though of course it would never have been enough."

Harry nodded against his neck again, and wrapped his arms more tightly around Connor when he sagged. Then he made soft soothing, clucking, crooning noises, and Connor dissolved at last into helpless sobs.

Harry folded up the unfortunate thoughts and put them away. Even if they were true, and James and Lily would have lived if Harry hadn't loved them, this was no time to voice it. He couldn't do anything to convince most of the people around him not to love him, and Connor needed support far more than Harry needed to say stupid things. Harry would lend his support through the funeral, if Connor asked him to attend, and his strength. It was what he did.

The discontent had made a small place to lie down in his heart, but it could stay there. It wasn't really a new thought, after all.

Harry had often wondered what his life would be like if things could only have changed, or, rather, remained the same—if no one had ever known what Lily had done to him, if he had stayed Connor's guardian. This wasn't even his first proof absolute that people dead now would have lived if he had stayed that way. It was only a newer and sharper version of it.

SSSSSSSSSS

Draco had crisscrossed the hallway for the third time when he heard soft voices, and rounded the corner to see Harry kneeling in front of his brother, talking. Connor's face was a mass of tears, of course. Draco paused to push his worried expression into a stoic mask. He didn't care about Lily and James, he cared about Harry, but if Connor was actually grieving, he wouldn't want to see Draco's indifference.

Connor's virtues were blazing especially bright now, but they were occluded by the burst of Harry's topaz. He said something that made Connor shake his head from side to side, but Draco could only make out the words when he got closer.

"—of course I want you there. Just because you renounced their name doesn't mean that you renounced their blood." Connor had the good grace to hesitate, at least, and add, "If you want to come, of course."

"I want to be there," Harry said, and his voice was full of such soothing comfort that Draco had no idea what he really felt.

"Thank you, Harry." Connor squeezed his hand for one moment, and then leaned against him. Harry put his arms around him, and patted his shoulders twice. His eyes made Draco think about backing off. If anyone came looking to tease or bother Harry's little brother in the next hour, Draco wouldn't place a high priority on their lives.

He took a cautious step forward anyway, and Harry lifted his head and looked at him. Draco blinked. The gaze he was receiving now wasn't one he'd been subjected to in a long time. Harry was evaluating him as a potential threat.

He nodded, though, and whispered so that Connor's small gasping breaths almost covered his words, "What did you want, Draco?"

"Just to find you," said Draco. "To make sure you were safe."

"I'm fine."

_Fine, my arse, _Draco thought, but Harry's face was calm and closed. His eyes were the only things that challenged that impression, and they were full of burning wrath and fury for his brother's sake. If Harry grieved for his parents, if he felt their loss as a blow, Draco had no idea.

"We'll hold the funeral as soon as we receive the bodies," Harry went on, his hand moving up and down Connor's spine the way he would soothe a baby. "We're unlikely to want to linger. The funeral will be near Lux Aeterna. Lily's family would hardly want her body back, and James was a worthy heir of the Potter line at one point in his life. He should be laid to rest near his family."

_And he sounds like he's planning a funeral for strangers, _Draco thought. _Which might actually be the healthier reaction. Damn it. There's nothing I can do until I know if he needs comfort or not._

"Will I be welcome to attend?" he asked.

"That's not my decision to make." Harry looked down at Connor. "What do you say about that, brother?"

"He can come," Connor's voice welled out, muffled. "But not if he says anything bad about them. I just—I want this to be a day when they're laid to _rest_. I don't want them as specters in our lives, of either cruelty or gladness."

Harry nodded. "And what about other people?"

"The same conditions apply to them."

"Of course," said Harry, and stood, easily carrying Connor with him because of his magic. "I'm going to get him to bed, Draco. You can tell the others that I'm fine. I'll be staying in Gryffindor Tower tonight."

"Tonight?" Draco couldn't help asking. "It's barely one in the afternoon, Harry."

"I know that," said Harry. "But Connor needs rest." Draco realized only then that the sobs had become snores, and Connor appeared to have dropped straight into exhausted sleep, though he still clung desperately enough to Harry to defy that impression. "And removing myself from him now would probably wake him up."

He turned and walked away. Draco licked his lips and couldn't resist one more call. "Harry, are you all right?"

"Fine, of course," Harry said. "Why wouldn't I be, given what they did to me?" And he rounded the corner and was gone.

Draco shook his head slowly. That was actually the reaction he supposed Harry should have, if he'd given up on caring about his parents altogether. He would only attend the funeral and show sorrow for his brother's sake. He wasn't grieving, he was sorry for Connor's grief.

_Except that his acting is so convincing that I have no idea if that's what he feels, or not._

He turned to find Snape, wondering all the while what to tell him. Should they be concerned about Harry, or not?

SSSSSSSSSSSS

As Harry had thought, Connor didn't wake when Harry laid him down on his bed, but the moment Harry adjusted his position, he stirred and fretted, the way he had when they were still children sleeping in one cot and Harry would try to leave for a lesson. Lily had taken to telling him those early vows, while Harry was still too young to completely understand them, through the bars of the cot. Harry would lie still, arms around Connor, and listen.

He did that now, curling protectively around Connor and listening to the faint sounds that came through the Tower windows along with the sunlight. He lay there he didn't know how long, watching as the shadows shifted and the sunlight withered and waxed with each passage of a cloud. It was a warm day, at least to lie fully clothed under blankets and next to someone else's body heat. Harry didn't let the sweat trick him into releasing Connor, though. He wouldn't have let it happen if he were lying in the same position with Draco.

_Or if Draco was comforting you—_

Harry cut himself off with a small shrug. He didn't think he needed the comfort. The major emotion he felt about the death of his parents was regret for the reason Voldemort had killed them. From the angle that Draco and Snape would see it, he certainly should feel relieved and proud that they were gone; they'd done so much to hurt him. Draco hadn't grieved even over Lucius as much as Harry had expected him to, given what Lucius had done to hurt the Malfoy family name before he was called back to Voldemort. Snape despised James and hated Lily. And Connor didn't expect grief of Harry, but he needed support.

So it was most comfortable for everyone if he just remained the way he was now.

Harry watched the changing sunlight, and waited for Connor to wake up. He expected more tears, a need for more soothing words, and some questions about the unfairness of life. Connor was an adult, almost, but he hadn't lost someone so close to him since Sirius. He would need reassurance that the confusion he felt was all right, that a funeral near Lux Aeterna was all right, that even his tears could emerge because it wasn't wrong to grieve for someone dead.

In the meantime, Harry watched the sunlight track across the walls.

SSSSSSSSSS

Snape turned Harry's head slowly back and forth, peering intently into his eyes. Harry bore with it, his face absolutely expressionless, as it had been in the last few days since his parents' deaths.

That wasn't to say he was welcoming Snape's Legilimency into his mind. Every time Snape tried, even to catch a glimpse of the emotions he was sure Harry must be feeling, he met a thick, choking kind of mist he hadn't seen before. He was sure Harry wasn't suppressing his emotions, because he had promised not to do it again, but he _was_ defending his thoughts.

And for the last few days, he had helped his brother plan for the funeral, comforted Potter when he needed it, reassured those people frightened by the sudden appearance of such dark news in the middle of a festival, sent formal condolences to the Ministry on the loss of so many of its Aurors, commiserated with Tybalt Starrise about the death of his brother Pharos, and acted all the while as if this attack had only affected those he loved and not himself, or people he had once loved.

It was quite maddening for Snape. But Harry's mask had not cracked once, nor shown any strain. Snape was close to having to accept that it was the truth, not a mask.

_Well, there is one thing I have not tried. _He had tried Legilimency on the sly, the offers of Calming Draughts and Dreamless Sleeping Potions, and surprising Harry when he was not with someone else and might let his guard down, but he had not tried simply asking him.

"How are you, Harry?" he asked, staring at him.

"Fine, sir." Delivered with no hesitation, and no flinching. Harry stood, eyes locked on his, as if waiting for more questions.

"How are you feeling?" Snape pressed. He half-wanted to grimace at such words coming out of his own mouth, but this was how—normal—parents talked to their children, and all the other roads had dwindled into nothing.

"Strong," Harry answered. "And calm."

_That got me exactly nowhere, _Snape realized. But he'd held Harry long enough. Harry was already glancing politely at the door, as if to remind Snape that he had a meeting to attend with his brother and a curator of pureblood traditions from Diagon Alley, who knew the details of how to arrange a formal funeral when both parents in the Potter line had died at once.

"If you need help," Snape said quietly, "you will come to me, won't you?"

"Of course," said Harry, a trace of faint surprise coloring his voice, as if he were surprised that Snape even needed to ask such a thing. "You or Draco."

And then Snape had to let him leave. He half-lidded his eyes, studying Harry's posture and the way he walked, and could see no clues there, either. He hadn't been skipping meals or sleep; that, Snape knew. He had simply picked up his role as tower of strength and guardian as though it were no strain on him at all, even though Snape knew it _must_ be.

But with no evidence, all he could do was wait until—or in case—Harry asked him for help.

SSSSSSSSSSS

Harry gave a little shake to settle the tension in his shoulders as he emerged from Snape's office. The way that both his guardian and Draco had peered at him in the last few days was getting to him. They both wanted something from him that Harry didn't know how to give.

They wouldn't approve of his real emotions about his parents—not the regret, nor the dissatisfaction over the way things had fallen out and the yearning for them to be different. They would tell him sternly that his parents had been evil and deserved their deaths, or that of course Voldemort was only doing this to get at him and he mustn't let that happen. They would pile more strain on Harry than he could handle right now. He was doing well as things were. He wouldn't do as well if he had to defend and explain his emotions constantly along with everything else. The questions both Snape and Draco put him through were minor and tolerable, compared to that.

He hurried his steps. Connor was meeting with the curator in an abandoned classroom McGonagall had let them take over, near the dungeons. He didn't have far to go, but he was already late.

The curator, who was already speaking with Connor when Harry arrived, was a short man with silver hair and a long beard that reminded Harry of Dumbledore's. His robes were different, of course, covered with silver runes and symbols that proclaimed ancient heritage and his devotion to that ancient heritage instead of moons and stars. His name was Barnabas Followwell, apparently. Harry gave him a nod as he slid into the seat beside his brother.

Followwell studied him for a moment. "Your brother tells me that you have renounced your last name," he said.

Harry, though a bit surprised the man hadn't known that before he came, simply nodded again.

The curator sniffed. "Then you should know that there are certain duties you will not be able to perform during the funeral, because you are not considered to be true family of the deceased."

_If I'd known how much trouble renouncing my last name was going to cause, I would have done it in private, _Harry thought in irritation. He opened his mouth to explain that he'd known that and didn't mind refraining from those duties, but Connor actually snarled and broke in.

"Then we don't _want_ that kind of funeral. We'll choose one that doesn't have these—these _idiotic_ tendencies saying that only certain people can pick up a gong or play a flute or swing a censer. You've already been condescending to me because my mother was Muggleborn. Don't you _dare_ start being condescending to my brother."

Followwell blinked a bit, and pushed his small, square glasses up his nose. "Young man, there is no need to be rude—"

"He just lost his parents," said Harry, leaning forward. "His parents whom he found out had abused him, and me, during the first eleven years of our lives. Tell me your feelings on the matter would be clear and uncomplicated. Sir."

After a moment, the curator nodded stiffly, and then withdrew a pouch from a thick braided thread around his neck. He spilled a mass of documents onto the table, handling them as carefully and reverently as if they were ancient parchments, though from what Harry saw, they were much likelier to be modern copies of ancient parchments. "As your legacy is split between the two of you—your brother has told me about your being his heir, Mr. Harry—this funeral may do." He separated one scroll from the rest and handed it over.

Harry picked it up and studied it. The list of customs at the top of the document was familiar to him, and while they were simple, they had a long history and were certainly profound and respectable enough. Best of all, this kind of funeral would allow for coffins that weren't open at all, which would be to their advantage. The Ministry had delivered James and Lily's bodies yesterday, and Harry had taken charge of them, so that Connor didn't have to see them. What remained of them was the size of his lynx form.

"This will do," he said. "What do you think, Connor?"

"Fine," said Connor abruptly, without even glancing at the parchment. He rubbed his forehead.

Recognizing the signs, Harry stood quickly and nodded at Followwell. "We'll ask that you deliver the instruments we need to us in three days' time, sir. That's when the funeral will happen."

"Wonderful." The man looked somewhere near happy. Harry wondered if he was grateful that this transaction was done, or if he simply liked using historical funeral customs, whether or not he liked the people involved. Harry suspected the latter, from the reverent way he took the parchment back. "I will send them to Hogwarts—or should I use the Lux Aeterna direction?"

"Here," said Harry, knowing that the man's owls wouldn't be able to get through the wards around Lux Aeterna. He glanced quickly at his brother, who was sitting with his hands clasped tightly around his head and muttering under his breath. "It was a pleasure working with you, sir."

"A pleasure." Followwell nodded back, though Harry doubted he thought that way, and departed.

Harry turned to Connor and clasped his forearms, pulling his hands away from his face. "Tell me what's wrong," he said.

"I hate feeling this way," Connor said, voice muffled. "Is this the way you felt before the trial, Harry? Thinking you should hate them more than you did? Unable to despise them as much as you wanted to, because you felt they were victims? I didn't feel they were victims then. And now I do. They're _dead._" He took a deep breath. "But that doesn't excuse what they did before death. But it shouldn't have to, I should be able to feel regret for their deaths if I like. But I don't know why it's so strong." He put his head back in his arms, yanking hard on Harry's grip to break it. "I hate this."

"They are dead," Harry whispered, and embraced him this time. "There is no need to apologize, Connor. Yes, I went through that confusion, and I wish that I could have spared you that set of emotions forever. But the hatred and the pity and the regret and the grief and the guilt are all real. It's better that you recognize them, rather than choosing one and castigating yourself for feeling the others."

Connor pressed forward into the embrace and held him strongly back. "I'm glad that you're here, Harry," he whispered. "Since Parvati's parents still won't let her visit me for long periods."

"I know," said Harry, and began to rub circles on Connor's back, which seemed to soothe him more than most other gestures. "And in a few days, Connor, this _will_ be over. The loss will be there, but not as fresh."

"I'd punch anyone else if they said that," Connor muttered. "Especially Draco. But from you, it sounds all right."

Harry closed his eyes and gathered Connor closer, feeling ready to kill anyone who might try to hurt his brother.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

The funeral began under a gray-washed morning sky, with clouds hanging above the sea and letting glimpses of gold peek through. Harry watched the clouds sway, and wondered if the weather could have chosen a more perfect reflection of Connor's mood. It was better than burying their parents in either full rain or full sunlight.

The procession began at the beach where the Potters sailed their boats off into the east on Midsummer morning, near the waves. Connor took a step forward until he stood up to his ankles in the washing water. He held a boat like the parchment ones in his hands, but made of carved cypress wood, the symbol of death. Followwell had been able to produce one without much trouble; he kept such symbols for all the major pureblood families, he had assured Harry.

"The Potters came from the east on Midsummer," said Connor. His voice was soft and didn't carry far, but there wasn't a large crowd there in any case. Just Harry, Draco, Snape, Peter, and, standing off to one side and speaking very carefully to the rest of them when he did speak, Remus. "I am sending this boat back into the east in memory of my father, and my mother, who became a Potter by her marriage. By the name of Helen Potter, who defeated the Firestar Lord who had loved her; by the name of Ebenezer Potter, who gave his life to shut the Shining Gate against the last of the sidhe; by the name of Mafalda Potter, who pursued her own life's course and damned those who damned her; I give them back into the sea, and trust that they will welcome them."

He breathed on the boat, then placed it in the water. For a moment, it bobbed, and Harry was sure that it would sink to the bottom, that it was too heavy with its thick wood sail. Then a breeze that hadn't been blowing a moment before started to blow, and the wooden sail belled like real cloth. Connor stepped a bit away from it as it began to move, and then stood with head bowed until it vanished quietly into a wave that opened to receive it, like a mouth. Harry bowed his head with him.

Connor waded back to shore then, and flicked his wand to levitate the coffins. Both were for full-size bodies, though Lily and James made small and gore-soaked bundles in them. That didn't matter, Followwell had said; the coffins should honor what they had been in life, not what they were at the moment of death. And Connor had agreed, though Harry thought that was partially because his brother wanted this over with so badly.

They made a small procession from the beach, over the hills behind it, across the grass to the Potter graveyard. Harry walked in silence, and so did the rest of them, to commemorate the silence that James and Lily were even now passing through. Harry did see a shadow on the grass, though, and when he glanced up, a large gull was keeping perfect pace with them, gliding like a hawk, now and then tilting its head down to watch them with one bright, beady eye. Harry kept expecting it to cry and break the solemn stillness, but it never did. He was almost sure he saw the hand of the northern goblins in that. They might not have cared greatly about the Potter line, which after all had owned one of the linchpins binding their web, but they could acknowledge the _vates_ who had freed them and his brother.

They arrived at last at the graveyard. It didn't look like a graveyard, and it had actually taken Connor and Harry most of a morning to find it. The ground was planted with a vaguely purplish grass that Harry knew was magical, though its magic seemed oriented to letting it survive the cold wind from the North Sea. Here and there, gentle curves, so soft they could almost be extensions of the hills, mounded the earth. Only when one drew close did one notice the tiny, ship-shaped stone in the center of each mound, containing a name and dates, and sometimes a longer inscription.

Followwell had prepared the stones for them, with Connor choosing the inscriptions. James's gave his name and dates, and the single word _Father_, Lily's her name and dates alone.

Harry came forward while Connor used his magic to open holes in the earth and then pile the disturbed soil off to the sides, ready to form the mounds when they were done here. The gull had alighted on James's coffin and stood there with head cocked, as if wondering what he was doing.

Even bloodline heirs who had disowned themselves were allowed a final farewell. And that was what Harry intended to give. He put his hand on James's coffin and bowed his head. Snape and Draco's eyes burned on his back. Harry ignored them. What he felt about his parents' death was his secret and going to stay that way, and it was not as though they could hear what he was going to say now. James had been living, and now he was dead. That was worthy of respect.

_I wish you had been a better man, _he thought. _I wish you had had a better life. I wish I had known you better. I wish many things had been different._

He stepped away, and Connor came forward to speak his part. Harry kept one eye on him as he moved towards Lily's coffin. Connor was composed, as the Potter heir had to be for this part of the ceremony, and his voice resembled the surface of the sea that morning: hard, but variegated with all sorts of contrary emotions.

"We are laying my parents to rest today. I cannot claim my relationship to them was uncomplicated. They abused my brother and I." Followwell had said truth was best, and it seemed Connor would tell everything. Harry was impressed. He knew he could not have done it. "They were not the good people I thought they were for the first eleven years of my life. I will not say that does not matter.

"But they are dead now, and in a manner that no one deserves to perish." Connor put his wand in his pocket and pulled out a silver knife, holding it to his scalp as he severed two locks of his hair. "I will mourn them for the rest of my life, even if what I am mourning is more shadow than it is reality." He stepped forward, moving past Harry gently as he laid one lock of hair on James's coffin and one on Lily's. The gull watched him in interest, but didn't try to peck at the hair. "I shall send part of myself with them, the one remaining son of both their body and their blood."

He stepped back, and went to work widening the graves again. That left Harry to face Lily's coffin.

Harry studied it in silence. The box was plain, dark wood with anti-rotting spells worked into the frame, and silver clasps. He knew what lay inside it. He had seen the shadow of the skull and the severed neck against the wrapping.

_Part of my life lies there, too._

It did, Harry thought, and, for just this moment, he would face it and admit it, and ignore the thoughts of what Snape and Draco would say about it. Snape and Draco had no right to dictate his emotions, or his response to what had happened.

_She understood me in a way that no one else ever has. She was the first to give me a vision of the future. She was the first to teach me about sacrifice, about compassion, about what the world meant and that there were more people in it than just me. And whether anyone wants to admit it or not, she's part of the reason that I am who I am, and part of the reason that good as well as bad things happened—even if she never intended the good things. To deny that is tantamount to denying myself._

_Goodbye—_

And for a moment, the world seemed to turn bright and hard as diamond. The gull cocked its head to watch him in turn.

But Harry couldn't do it, in the end. He could not give her back the name of "Mother" she had so efficiently stripped from herself.

_Goodbye, Lily. Would that I could mourn you more._

"_Diffindo_," he whispered, concentrating, and a lock of hair dropped from his head into his hand. He laid it on the coffin next to Connor's. He refused to look and see if anyone was watching him and gaping. What he felt for his parents was _his_, to guard and lock away if he wished, and to refuse to explain.

He did not truly believe that his parents would have much existence beyond the grave, not if they did not become ghosts. The world of spirits was so bewildering that even what little necromantic magic he'd studied, to free thestrals, gave contradictory reports. He was sending the hair not to accompany Lily on any journey, but in token and sign of what would never come back.

Connor lifted the coffins carefully, James first, then Lily, and lowered them into their graves. The gull stayed until the last moment, then took flight, crying loudly, over their heads. Harry saw more than one person start at that, but he tilted his head back and watched it soar into the multi-colored sky, gaining height with each beat of its wings.

"James Potter is passed," said Connor, and from the sound of it, he was fighting tears. "Lily Potter is passed. _Ave morti._"

And then the coffins were down, and Harry heard the shuffling sound of earth heaping in above them.

He did not look. He kept watching the gull instead, until it was a circling, dancing speck flown so high that it was hard to distinguish from the leading edge of a cloud.

They might ask him questions. Harry would not answer. For today, his mind was as silent, and as difficult to interpret for any augurer, as that sky.


	27. And Sometimes There Is Light

**Warning: Very heavy slash in the third scene.** It's been edited for this site, but the full version is available at Skyehawke or my LJ.

**Chapter Twenty: And Sometimes There Is Light**

"And so the Pact won't forbid you from doing this?" Harry had to admit, he was intrigued by Jing-Xi's latest effort to help him, but not if it meant that she would be snatched out of the country by the other Lords and Ladies for breaking her word when she first came to Britain.

The Chinese Light Lady spent a moment looking over the list of Horcrux locations, then shook her head. "No. They were horrified by the idea that Voldemort has more than one Horcrux, even Alexandre, who surely has one himself. They will permit Kanerva and I to do whatever we can to destroy them." She gave a small smile as she rolled the parchment up. "However, I would not suggest setting Kanerva to this sort of task. She can hardly control herself as it is."

Harry nodded. Juniper had sent him a letter yesterday asking him to tell his Dark Lady friend to stop making winds blow at hurricane speeds all over the British Isles. The problem, of course, was that Harry couldn't simply reach Kanerva like that; she was the one who decided to appear or not, and she hadn't chosen to appear in bodily form since the night of the slaughter in Cornwall. She could be causing the winds, or she could be dancing and delighting in them, or those could simply be the places that she traveled through on her way to another part of the island.

"Harry?"

He looked up, wondering if there was anything else Jing-Xi needed. He had given her everything the bird and Regulus had told or shown him about Horcruxes, which wasn't much. He would entrust her and Thomas the search because they were both research wizards; they would discover more if anyone could.

"Your magic is hovering in a halfway state," said Jing-Xi softly. "You have accepted its full power, but not allowed it to settle. Why not?"

"There hasn't been time," said Harry, thinking of the mess his life had become since their parents' deaths. Planning for the funeral and comforting Connor and everyone else who had lost someone in the Death Eater attack on Tullianum had taken most of his time, and then there had been some press conferences, because people were panicking under the idea that if the Ministry's secure prison could be attacked, anywhere else could be and _would_ be. And now he was determined to find and end the Horcruxes once and for all, but of course one could not simply do that. "I came into my full power on my birthday, and I haven't used it greatly since then."

Jing-Xi placed the parchment with the Horcrux locations in her pocket and stood. Her hair writhed around her like a nest of dancing snakes. "I would like you to go outside and use it now. Maintaining it in such a limbo state uses up extra energy of yours to keep it there. Allow it to settle fully into your body, and you will feel a little less tired. Even a bit of weariness can make the difference between life and death in a battle situation, as you well know."

"Jing-Xi—"

"What?"

Harry tossed his head, wondering if part of the restlessness he felt at any mention of his magic, or indeed at any mention of what had happened on their birthday, came from that limbo state. "Can you suggest something useful for me to do with it? I can't think of anything right now, but I don't want to waste the magic."

"It does not need to be something useful," said Jing-Xi, and then she smiled at him. "In fact, it might be better if it was not. From what you have told me, on your birthday the magic was in a playful mood. Let it pass through that mood and come out the other side."

"So no concentrating on the Horcruxes and hoping my magic points me towards them?" Harry asked, even as he stood up.

Jing-Xi shook her head. "You have not relaxed or played since your birthday," she said. "I think it's time, Harry."

"I didn't mean to—" Harry began.

Lightly, she reached over and clasped his wrist, and the sensation of her power eddying over his like sunlit water calmed him. "I am not blaming you," she whispered. "Merely advising you. Go out and play until your magic finds its proper place, Harry. Then you will have more energy to meet the problems in front of you, and you will lighten your mind."

Harry lowered his eyes and nodded. "Sorry," he murmured. "I've been—on edge." Snape and Draco kept trying to talk to him about the funeral. Harry kept telling them they weren't talking about that. And the number of things that had gone wrong made him hypersensitive whenever someone started talking about another mistake.

"I know." Jing-Xi squeezed his wrist one more time, and walked him towards the door. "Never fear. Thomas and I will turn up information on these Horcruxes. We turned up information on the laws underlying the Grand Unified Theory, didn't we? Even though it took us years."

"We don't have years," Harry murmured.

"Well I know it." And then she hugged him, which so startled Harry that he didn't return the embrace. She let him go, gently pushed him into the hallway, and shut the door behind him while he still blinked.

"There you are, Harry."

Harry concealed a groan. Draco was leaning against the wall, waiting for him, and now he stood straight and nodded. Harry steeled himself for some new query about the funeral, or how he was feeling.

Draco only asked, "Where are you going? Do you want me along?"

That left Harry unsteady, waiting for the attack. But he mustered a smile and said, "Outside to play with my magic like a good little boy, the way that Jing-Xi told me to."

"Too bad it isn't to play with something else," Draco murmured, and Harry choked. When he shot a glance at his partner, though, Draco's eyes were very wide, and he looked the picture of innocence. "You didn't say whether you wanted me along. Can I come?"

Harry hesitated, but at last said, "I don't see why not."

SSSSSSSSSSSS

They stepped out under such a beautiful sunset that Draco's breath caught. For once, the clouds had drawn back enough to show the light without the rain, but hadn't departed completely, so that the light had them to play with. The gray behemoths glinted with pink dripping down the underside, thick as paint. Above them arched lavender, and some nameless, wine-dark color that made Draco wish he could have sat under it and watched it develop, so that he would discover what it was made of. In the east, the blue-black darkness was already complete.

But the most beautiful thing was the dome of the sky itself, beaten and shining like hammered gold. Draco clenched his hands and lost himself in the sight for a moment, until Harry's magic released him.

Draco would have known that feeling anywhere, the heady press of fire and fur along his skin. Turning, he saw Harry with his hands extended and his head bowed, the dark blue and purple light bursting around him, inchoate shapes of trees and jaguars and snakes whirling and blazing and fading. Then the magic settled itself and struck out at clouds, trees, grass, Draco himself.

He dropped to one knee as he felt the emotion the magic was giving him, wave after wave of solemn high happiness, of a peace stolen from the changing world and transplanted for this one moment. He closed his eyes, to conceal the tears this was bringing forth, and blindly put out a hand. Harry found and clasped it, pulling him close to stand with an arm around his shoulders, while he continued to send peace forth.

Draco forced his eyes open, because he wanted to watch. The lake, in front of them, rippled and began to dance under the pressure of a slight breeze. The light it reflected broke and scattered, but formed new patterns, triangles and circles, of radiance so extreme that Draco's sight burned. The air warmed and brightened, and it became hard to tell what was Harry's magic and what was retransfigured sunset. Light and power blended together, and Draco felt a distant, trembling premonition of what made people Declare for Light.

This was not the strongest magic he had ever felt, nor the most satisfying. It _was_ the most beautiful. And beauty could seduce hearts.

_I should know, _Draco thought, as he tilted his head back and stared into Harry's eyes. His hand came up and swiped softly at Harry's cheeks, the tears leaking across them. Then he reached up, hooked his arms around Harry's neck, and pulled him down into a firm kiss.

Harry made a startled little noise, but didn't refuse, kissing back and collapsing so that they were chest-to-chest. Draco felt his magic lift and drape them both like a cloak, then extend in all directions as though the cloak were woven of a spider's web. It caressed earth and air with stored heat. Draco arched his back, and he _knew_ what he wanted, as suddenly and as completely as if it had been written in letters of fire on the back of his eyelids.

Accordingly, when Harry tried to roll them over so that Draco was on top, Draco gripped his shoulders and stopped him.

"No," he said quietly. "Not this time."

Harry froze in place, the way he tended to do when he assumed he'd made a mistake, his eyes wide and confused and searching Draco's. He must have seen what Draco wanted there, because he gave a little shuddering buck, like a hooked fish.

"N—"

Before he could even get the refusal out, Draco cupped his face and brought it down again, kissing him breathless, trying to convey with that gesture how much he _trusted_ Harry. He knew Harry was trying to refuse because he didn't trust himself, didn't trust his own capacity to control and dominate people.

_How can I make him see that this isn't about domination? I have perfect confidence in him._

_Perhaps I should just say it._

"Harry, you aren't going to hurt me," said Draco. "I mean it," he added, as Harry's head started shaking. "I _know_ that you're not going to hurt me, because I trust you not to hurt me." He nuzzled his head into the side of Harry's neck, smugly congratulating himself on falling in love with him. Who else could he experience this level of trust with? "Come on. We both need this, and I know we both want this." He rolled his hips against the hard warmth at Harry's groin, and Harry caught his breath with a little gasp and a sob. "Please."

Harry swallowed once, then nodded. Draco half-convulsed with the strength of the joy that ran through him.

"All right," Harry whispered. "Here?"

Draco was impressed with himself for managing to arch an eyebrow. "Not unless you want to use a Disillusionment Charm, and not unless you Transfigure this grass into a cushion," he said. "Too uncomfortable otherwise."

Harry nodded, then stood and held out his hand. "Let's go to bed, then," he whispered.

As he took Harry's hand, Draco realized there was something different about it. The sense of tension, of danger, he'd felt around Harry for the last few days had melted, or at least muted. He no longer seemed as if he would burst into flames if someone said the wrong thing. And his magic had filled the air with a deep purring that Draco had to concentrate to hear.

Doubtless, some of that was because Harry had just used his magic in rather a spectacular manner. But Draco knew part of it was also due to him.

SSSSSSSSSSS

Harry hoped that Draco couldn't see his nervousness as they returned to their bedroom, and he set up the strongest silencing and locking spells he knew. It wouldn't do to be disturbed in the middle of this.

He should have known better.

He jumped a bit as Draco's arms curled around his middle, and he murmured into Harry's ear, "You're _not_ going to hurt me, Harry. Pain in sex can be unforgivable, but this isn't about to be. And do you know why?"

"Not the slightest idea." Harry could hear the panic building in his voice, and could do absolutely nothing to stop it. He knew things about himself that Draco didn't. He had that darkness inside him, that darkness that liked the idea of hurting others, of dominating them for his pleasure. So long as he put limits on himself—so long as Draco was the one inside him, and not the other way around—Harry knew things would work, because they had worked in the past. This, though—it reminded him of possession, of being controlled, of the phoenix web. He hated compulsion on himself, but he would kill himself before he would control someone else like that. He didn't see why every relationship he had couldn't just be equal.

"Because I know it will be slight, and I know I'll forgive you for it if it happens." Draco kissed the back of his neck, and then pulled away. Harry heard the sound of buttons sliding through cloth.

He turned around, wondering if Draco would give the notion up once he saw the fear in his eyes. But Draco's face was utterly serene, though lit with a blaze, as if part of the sunset light had migrated under his skin. He gave Harry a look that was not a smile, and Harry knew that Draco understood the fear, and intended to lead him through it anyway.

And then Draco smiled.

Harry would have taken a step back if the door wasn't behind him. He felt punched him in the gut. He had never seen such perfect trust in someone else's eyes.

"I want this," said Draco, and ran a hand through his hair in what looked like an accidental gesture, though that "accidental" gesture drew attention to the glints of light in his pale hair and the motion of his arms, so Harry had his doubts. "And you know what I'm like when I want something, Harry. Besides, I know that not _all_ of you is so reluctant as you pretend." He cocked his head. "Don't tell me you're not curious. Don't tell me that you haven't wondered what this would be like. Because of the pleasure I'm experiencing when I bed you, if nothing else."

Harry flushed as he felt his cock give a twitch. "I've thought about it," he said. "But I had ethical objections."

Draco just gave a soft laugh, as if Harry's ethical objections were an endearing trait of his, and nodded to Harry's clothes. "Off with them, now," he said. "And then I want you to kiss me."

"We _were_ kissing," Harry felt compelled to say as he began to fumble at his clothes, his fingers feeling thick and clumsy. "On the grass."

"Not like that," Draco said, and sauntered to the bed, lying back on it, so that he could watch Harry undress. "The way I kiss you when _I_ top. I want to be spoiled."

Harry blinked, and paused in undoing his trousers, which made Draco hiss at him in impatience. "That's spoiling?" He had never considered it so. To him, it had been more like a sign of a contract between him and Draco, that this was all right, that from moment to moment Draco was in charge and it was all right.

"The slowness I use, when I'm dying to go faster, is," Draco pointed out.

Harry considered it, and could see that. He nodded, and went back to undressing. His hands continued to shake, but he reckoned the tremor was a little less pronounced than before.

_Maybe._

He kicked off his trousers and pants at last, and walked towards the bed. He found he could barely look directly at Draco, which was ridiculous. How many times had he seen him naked before? Hundreds of times, that was what. And yet, with Draco lying there and looking at him with the expectation that this time Harry would take the lead, it was suddenly mortifying.

Draco sighed. It didn't get Harry's back up like any sigh had this past week. It wasn't a sound that said Harry had made some mistake and needed to be scolded for it. It was a sound of loving exasperation, and it gave Harry the impulse to grin at him instead.

"This is the part where we meet each other again, I see," Draco, and leaned forward, running his fingers up Harry's arm. Harry gave a strong gasp, swaying so hard he nearly fell over. Draco spent a moment more stroking him, then pulled away and raised one eyebrow. "Remember how good that feels? That's _pleasure_, Harry, and nothing you need be cautious about. Now, come _on_."

"I suppose I'm still worried about hurrying you," Harry murmured, crawling onto the bed.

"Think about what you feel when you're in my position," Draco demanded, lying back and pulling Harry on top of him so that they lay chest-to-chest—and groin-to-groin, which made Harry nearly forget about listening for a moment. Luckily, Draco was there to lift his chin and remind him. "Don't you want to make me feel like that?"

"Yes." Harry wondered who had taken his voice out of his throat and put this gasping, husky, guttural thing in its place. He lowered his head and carefully licked at the side of Draco's neck, and then blew on his ears. Draco sighed and let his head fall back against the pillow, running one hand down between their chests.

"Come on, Harry," he whispered.

Harry grinned. He didn't think he'd ever heard that exact tone in Draco's voice before—begging without begging, pleading without pleading. He'd tried to make it sound demanding, and failed miserably.

Harry decided to see if he could get Draco to sound like that again. He moved down his chest, altering his position from moment to moment so that Draco couldn't tell what would happen next. Now he blew across his nipples, now he simply ran his fingers lightly up and down the sensitive skin near Draco's ribs, now he suddenly changed direction altogether and hovered near his groin. Draco muttered and thrashed and moaned, and sometimes, when Harry hit one of his extremely vulnerable spots—of which he had fewer than Harry, which wasn't fair—he made a garbled sound that was rather like a version of a coo.

The first time he made it, he froze, and then stared at Harry. "Tell me that I did _not_ sound like a dove just then," he muttered. Or, at least, he tried to mutter it, Harry knew. His voice, broken with pants and half-moans and long pauses between individual words, made it sound rather more like a stutter.

"You didn't sound like a dove just then," Harry announced obediently, and pressed down on his own groin for a moment to relieve the need. Then he went back to work, flicking Draco's nipple at the same moment as he blew on his ear. There came the coo again.

"That is _not_ me," Draco denied. "You're casting some spell or something."

"Am not," said Harry, and repeated it, to get the sound a third time, though Draco tried his best to keep it in. "That's all you."

Draco half-opened an eye and glared at him. "If you weren't making me feel so good, I'd—"

Harry cast a wandless lubrication spell then, deciding he'd rather do it while he was riding high on the confidence of making Draco feel this good, rather than fumble it later due to nervousness. Draco's eyes widened, and this time he sounded like a dying mouse. Harry couldn't hold back his laughter, which had a distinctly proud edge to it.

"You told me once that Malfoys don't squeak," he murmured, and worked his way down Draco's body, deliberately moving so that he tortured every most sensitive spot at least once on the way. "And we established that Blacks don't make embarrassing noises, either, because you said so. So perhaps it's just _Draco_ who makes noises like this because he's so eager to have his boyfriend inside him that he just can't hold back."

"You—wanker," Draco managed, in between gasps, as Harry gently ran a hand across his arse.

"Oh, well, if you wanted that, you could have _asked,_" said Harry, and closed his other hand around Draco.

It became a contest then, with Draco attempting to curse him, or perhaps even summon his wand and do it for real, while Harry teased him slowly and taunted him with circling one finger very gently across his arse, never quite putting it where Draco wanted it. When he finally _did_ put it where Draco wanted it, Draco arched his back and, Harry would swear later, half-barked.

"Ah," said Harry, concentrating on coordinating the movements of his hands so that he didn't think too much about either his own rising desire or his fear. "So that settles it. You aren't a mouse or a dove after all. You're a bloody _seal._"

"Wanker," Draco said weakly, his head rolling back and his eyelids fluttering. "How do you—ah—_stand_ this?"

"Obviously, you aren't quite as good as I am," said Harry, and carefully added another finger, listening all the time for the slightest hitch in Draco's breathing, the slightest gasp of pain. He knew he wouldn't be able to resist his instincts if it happened; his hand would move away from Draco like it would from a fire.

Draco made an indignant noise, arching his neck into impossible shapes. "See—what happens—next time—_Harry!_"

Harry waited a moment, to be sure that that last cry was a sound of ecstasy and not of agony—

"_Move!_"

Definitely not agony, then. Harry resumed the motions of his hands, watching all the while as Draco's face flushed and his skin bristled with sweat. He could almost lose himself in the watching, almost forget about the excitement that leaned heavily on the inside of his neck and throat. Was this what Draco felt in his position? This intensity of pleasure knowing he was responsible for someone else's pleasure?

And then he turned a corner in his own mind.

This wasn't about power at all. At least, it didn't have to be. No wonder Draco trusted him. He had already known it was about feeling good, and he'd wanted to share that, to see that Harry had pleasure he hadn't known before.

And to feel it himself, of course, because Slytherins were nothing if not selfish.

Harry lowered his head and rubbed his cheek against Draco's stomach, drying any tears that might have crept out—tears he certainly wouldn't admit to—because Draco, damn it, was _Draco_.

"I think that's enough, Harry," Draco said abruptly, sounding far too composed, and lifted his legs high enough to drape them across Harry's shoulders.

_He's coherent? I'll just have to do something about that. _Harry removed his fingers, slowly, and arranged himself so that he was where he needed to be, casting another lubrication spell. He looked down, and watched the shine of the wet skin, his and Draco's, and the way his chest jumped and shuddered and shook, so intensely was his heart racing.

"Harry." Draco's voice was unexpectedly clear and clean and coherent, all of which Harry was grateful for right now. "I trust you."

Harry nodded, closed his eyes, and then slid gently forward.

As it turned out, when Draco did make a noise of pain, Harry couldn't pull away because he was entangled in Draco's legs and Draco's body generally. He bent forward, gasping, and summoned his magic to help him hold his body still and his voice steady as he asked quietly, "How much did I hurt you?"

"Not much," said Draco, and he sounded both pained and composed. "_Move._"

Harry didn't think he was able to resist a command given in a voice like that, and slowly slid forward again, stopping every time Draco made a noise, until Draco's voice repeated again, like a trumpet sounding a charge, "_Move._"

At last, finally, he could move no more, and he sagged forward and let his forehead rest on Draco's chest, panting. He knew he was bending Draco nearly in half, but Draco didn't complain, and Harry couldn't have held himself upright at that moment. His skin was one blaze of heat, his mind one blaze of various emotions—terror and excitement and remorse and lust—making the world surreal.

He found he didn't need instructions for the moment when Draco was ready for him to move again. By that time, Harry would have been surprised if either of them could have spoken, anyway. He shifted his hips back and then forward, and cried out at the warmth while Draco cried out at the end of a pleasure that Harry knew well.

And he got to know this pleasure well, too, as he took it, motion after careful motion, seemingly impossible to halt once he started. He wasn't rough—he made sure of that—but he was thorough, because it seemed impossible not to be. And when he found his pace speeding up, he thought about stopping it only for a moment.

Then he recalled Draco saying he trusted Harry, and decided that, in return, he'd have to trust Draco. Instead of assuming that he'd hurt Draco and Draco simply didn't want to say so for fear of ending their bedding, he'd assume he hadn't hurt Draco _until_ he said so.

And, another corner turned, he began to move more smoothly and more confidently, and also to look beyond himself. His hand took up the motion on Draco again, and Draco gave a gasping little breath of surprise.

Then he began pushing back, as if hoping to regain some sort of control. Harry groaned, and caught a glimpse of Draco's smirk. He redoubled the force of his own hips, and Draco gave a deeper gasp than his and arched in a motion that once more reminded Harry of a seal as it moved through the water.

Merlin, it felt so _good_, made it so hard to think of the war and Voldemort and their parents' deaths and all the other things that had so troubled Harry. It didn't make them cease to exist, but it carved itself out a place in the midst of them, and Harry had a perfect moment before his eyes as an illustration of what it really meant to live _simultaneously_, to not let the good things stop existing because of the war. Draco was tight and hot around him, and tempting in other ways, groaning now steadily, as if he could hardly find the air for anything else, but more than anything, it was _good._

Draco lost control first, which Harry felt smug about as he felt the wetness pour over his fist. And then he felt the moment trembling before him that he'd been most afraid of, when he thought for sure that refusing to hold himself back in sex would hurt Draco. He could resist it, if he liked, and dim its impact. His Occlumency would help him with that if nothing else did.

The haze cleared from his mind long enough to leave him that choice, untrammeled.

And Harry chose trust again, flung himself off the cliff and into mid-motion, trusting Draco to tell him if it hurt. He leaned forward and came hard enough that it should have hurt _him_, but it felt, instead, like pleasure equal to the pain would have been, and his whole body shook, and it _did_ take magic to keep him from collapsing after that and crushing Draco's face against his chest.

Carefully, or as carefully as he could with his hands shaking like an old man's, he ran his fingers through Draco's hair and tilted his head back. "Are you all right?" he whispered.

Draco blinked, then lunged up, despite the awkward angle and the bones Harry could hear creaking in his neck, and kissed him by way of answer. Harry felt the _Yes_ in his mind more strongly than words could have conveyed, and relaxed.

Gently, he pulled out of Draco again and gathered him up in his arms, murmuring cleaning spells and spells to make them dry and warm. Draco yawned and cuddled close to him, but wasn't asleep, as Harry knew from the fact that the soft, contented murmurs refused to turn into snores. He stroked Draco's back and neck, and circled around and around the main thought in his head, a source of deep wonder.

_He trusted me. And it was all right. And I didn't hurt him. And I trusted him, and it was all right._

And if he'd trusted him with this, did that mean that Harry could trust him with other things? His feelings about his parents and the funeral, for example, and the darkness that lived inside him?

_Maybe, _Harry thought, pulling Draco closer and starting to kiss the back of his neck. _Not right now, not while we're so comfortable. But later. I'm going to._

Inevitability was as a road that led him towards that level of confidence.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Thomas sat up.

It was the first time he'd felt something like this since Priscilla's death, a bolt of lightning that struck from his eyes down to his chest and then bounced back up to his brain. He had buried his grief with his wife and set about comforting his children and making things for the war. It was what needed to be done, and, as Harry was forever reminding people—by actions instead of words; Thomas was sure that he would shut up in embarrassment if he talked about it as often as he acted it out—when there was something to be done, one did it. He had half-expected, without knowing why he was so sure of it, never to feel that excitement that accompanied a sudden discovery again.

And yet…

Here it was. Here it _was._

Thomas bent close over the list of family names from Little Hangleton, his fingers writhing on the edge of the parchment. He felt Jing-Xi adopt a careful listening stance across from him. She knew something was traveling through his mind right now, and she would be ready to hear it, but she wouldn't interrupt, in case that caused Thomas to lose the researcher's trance.

And Thomas was grateful for the silence. He stared long and hard at the name in the middle of the list. _Gaunt._

Then he closed his eyes and dived deep into his memory. He knew many things, but he could not keep them all in the forefront of his mind at all times. So they lay in deep waters, and reeling one specific piece of information back to the surface was sometimes like catching one specific fish or diving for one specific pearl.

In this case, he was remembering the book he'd read Gaunt in before. A wizarding genealogy, years ago, when he was trying to figure out what had happened to the famous "Lost Families" who'd supposedly started wizardry in Great Britain. Slytherin had descended from one of those families, and so his descendants had been of interest to Thomas, but he'd lost them in a thicket of intermarriages, criminal trials that had persuaded his descendants to vary their names, exiles to the Continent, and orphans of war who could remember only scraps and fragments of their parents' pasts, or who were made the magical heirs of other families and given new names. That was where everyone lost them. In the end, Thomas had been forced to admit defeat, but he'd written down his best guesses for where the Slytherin line had gone to ground.

_Peverell _had been one of those guesses, and that family had sprouted other families, who in turn were possibilities for candidates of Peverell descent.

And one of them had been Gaunt.

Thomas sat back with a triumphant laugh, and nodded to Jing-Xi when she leaned forward to share the moment.

"We'll want to look at Gaunt properties near Little Hangleton," he said, and turned to an ancient map that was divided by territory belonging to certain Muggle and wizarding families. "And for evidence of a Gaunt woman bearing a child away from her family's native land. I would wager my skin that a Gaunt woman was Tom Riddle's mother."

"And if the Gaunt family possessed a powerful magical object—" Jing-Xi began.

"That's our Horcrux," said Thomas, and his excitement blazed brighter and brighter, summoning other memories. "Come to think of it, I believe I read once that the Peverell family used rings to mark their true heirs…"


	28. The Dark Years

**Chapter Twenty-One: The Dark Years**

Harry finally put out a hand and splayed it palm-down on the parchment, preventing Thomas from moving it, so that he could actually _glimpse_ what was happening on it. Thomas, who had been about to substitute another family tree for that one, blinked and then gave him a sheepish look. "Was I talking too fast again?"

"Yes," said Harry absently, and bent over the tree so that he could get a good look.

This one showed the descent of the Gaunt family from the Peverell family, at least as Thomas had reconstructed it; the higher branches were dotted with numerous question marks, to show that there were other families with claims just as strong to be true heirs of the Peverells. The branches steadied as they moved down the centuries, though, and closer to modern times.

They also contracted. It seemed that the House of Gaunt had been in the habit of marrying cousins, rather like the Black family. The last generation was a man named Marvolo—Harry half-bared his teeth, remembering what Tom Riddle's full name was—and his two children, a son, Morfin, and a daughter, Merope. Both had been born near the turn of the century. If either of those children had ever had a child, the tree didn't record it.

"And you think Merope was Tom Riddle's mother?" he asked, tilting his head back to see Thomas. "Why?"

"Look." Thomas whipped the Gaunt tree away and lowered another parchment in its place. Harry saw that it wasn't another genealogy after all, the way he had suspected. It was a copy of a trial record from the Ministry. He leaned over it, and exclaimed so loudly that Madam Pince glared at them from her desk.

The trial record claimed that Morfin Gaunt, "the only member of the House of Gaunt then left alive," had been arrested for the murder of three Muggles, by the last name of Riddle, in 1943. He had confessed to killing them, so the Ministry hadn't seen any reason not to toss him into Azkaban. He had died there, apparently still believing that he had actually committed the crime.

"But it's likely that Voldemort killed his father and his grandparents instead," Harry said softly, his mind turning inward.

"Oh, yes, extremely likely," said Thomas, shocking him out of his reverie. He took the trial record away and replaced it with what seemed to be a map. Squinting, Harry couldn't orient himself until he made out a line labeled "Thames" in the middle. Even then, though, he couldn't make out what the map covered. Twining lines of many different colors, sometimes subtly different shades, ran in and out and around each other, and sometimes had the labels of years beside them. He looked up at Thomas and shook his head in confusion.

"Oh. Sorry." A faint blush touched Thomas's cheeks. "This is a spell that Jing-Xi invented, some years ago. It allows us to track people by magical signature, and that, combined with the magical gifts of certain families, means that we can know that Merope Gaunt was in London in December 1926." He hesitated for just a moment, gratifying Harry, and then touched a dark green line with some confidence. "She was alone, and she died very shortly afterward. But the building near which she died—" he rapped his finger hard against one small square "—was a Muggle orphanage. And we _know_ that Tom Riddle was reared in a Muggle orphanage. That, along with a little information about him such as his real name, was known to a few members of the Order of the Phoenix, and Dumbledore passed it to your friend Peter."

"What gift did you use to track her?" Harry asked.

Thomas stood straight and proudly cocked his head. "Who says that we used one?"

"You just admitted it," Harry pointed out, a bit amused. "And it's just wondrous that the spell could pick up a trail that old without one."

Thomas flushed. "Yes. Well." He cleared his throat. "We used Parseltongue. We don't know for certain if Merope was a Parselmouth herself, of course—we could hardly ask her—but she carried the magical signature for it. She certainly passed it on to her son. And of course it's not surprising that descendants of Slytherin would have that gift. For me, that's just proof positive that the Gaunts really are the last of that line, not the Thickbrackets or the Hornflowers or all the other descendants of Peverell with a claim to the title." He gave a sharp nod. "And I'm reckoning that we'll find that a Peverell ring is one of the Horcruxes."

Harry half-closed his eyes. He felt he was on the verge of an important discovery, but it hung in front of him, just out of reach, and he couldn't yet grasp it. "So Parseltongue was a blood gift in Slytherin's line," he murmured. "There's no sign that Merope was the magical heir of her father."

"No," said Thomas firmly. "We tried to track her using the _absorbere_ gift at first, actually, since we thought part of the reason Tom Riddle might have developed his powers so absurdly young was that she might be an _absorbere_ and have died right near him, thus allowing him to absorb that gift within a few hours after his birth. But no such luck. That truly is a power original to him alone in his line, it seems. Parseltongue worked. Whether or not Tom Riddle was his mother's magical heir, he was her blood heir, and that is a blood-passed gift."

And the notion that had been taunting Harry burst full on him like a sunrise.

"Thomas," he said, "I'm also a Parselmouth, and yet I'm certainly not connected to Tom Riddle by blood."

"I know," said Thomas, his face taking on a certain shine that Harry had only ever seen in his eyes when he discussed the Grand Unified Theory. "And that would have been impossible to explain, except that I studied the tunnel between you and Voldemort, and I came up with a theory."

Harry blinked, and it was a struggle not to lose his idea in his startlement. "When did you do that?"

"In Woodhouse, before your father told me to stop, and that I was not to make you the subject of an experiment," said Thomas, without a trace of embarrassment. "What I found there was that _all_ magic passes freely back and forth between you two, including the Parselmouth gift that would ordinarily be passed only to a Riddle—or Gaunt, rather—blood heir. I have told you that magic has free will." He waited for Harry to nod. "And by then, the Parseltongue magic knew that its host would have no heir of his body. So it changed and adapted itself when the moment came for the _absorbere_ gift to flow into you. It _made_ itself become a gift that could be passed to a magical heir, it seemed, because it wished to survive when Tom Riddle died. It was determined that he not be the last Parselmouth in Britain, and perhaps one of the last Parselmouths in the world." Thomas shook his head, eyes shining. "Magic is a wonderful thing, Harry, truly, and we are only on the _brink_ of understanding it, not fully there. We will not be fully there in my lifetime, nor for a hundred lifetimes thereafter."

Harry clenched his hands slowly, feeling the fingers of his left hand chill as they slid across the silver emblem in the center of his palm. "Do you think it's possible, then, that from a certain angle, I could be considered the blood heir of Slytherin's line?" he asked.

Thomas stepped abruptly back from the table, and whispered, "That is a brilliant idea, Harry, _brilliant._ Part of what made the Gaunts whom they were was the inheritance of that magic. That was the truest sign of their descent from Slytherin, not any rings they might have managed to lose, or perhaps sell for food. And by passing to you, in a way, it makes you a Gaunt. I _must_ research this."

He looked as if he were about to dash off to do it right then, but Harry managed to press the documents he'd given him back into his hands. "You'll want this," he said. "I just need one thing from you: directions to that orphanage in London. I'll be going there to learn what I can about Tom Riddle's childhood."

Thomas cocked his head and blinked rapidly. "Well, you know, Harry, that tracking spell really only reveals where someone went, and sometimes how they died. It doesn't tell you anything about their character."

Harry smiled. "I won't need that tracking spell. I'll have someone with me who can learn things from objects."

"Oh, good," said Thomas vaguely, his eyes blazing and elsewhere. "Well, here then, Harry." He copied a street name rapidly onto a scrap of parchment, then tossed it to Harry and hurried out of the library. Madam Pince cleared her throat significantly and looked at Harry, as if to say that that would be a good act to imitate.

Harry pocketed the parchment, returned a few of the books he'd been using before Thomas interrupted him like a small excited whirlwind to their usual places, and then departed the library. His mind was elsewhere, on the implications of his being the actual blood heir of Slytherin—if it were true.

There was an Unassailable Curse on that small shack on the hill above Little Hangleton, which Harry now imagined was probably the one-time home of the Gaunt family, and the hiding place of the Peverell ring, assuming that Voldemort had made it into a Horcrux. The Unassailable Curse said that only someone with the blood of Slytherin could bypass it.

If Harry could be considered, in a technical sense, the blood heir of the Gaunts, since Parseltongue along with everything else had come down to him through Tom Riddle, then his blood might be enough to unravel that curse.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Luna nodded solemnly to Harry. "If no one else has ever come asking the orphanage the story of Tom Riddle, then the doors must be eager to tell it," she said, and carefully put her wand back into her pocket. She'd been casting spells on the warped wood of a classroom door when Harry found her. He hadn't quite dared to ask her what that was about, though perhaps she was easing its pain. "I will go with you. But, for now, there is another question to ask. You must come with me." She clamped her hand on his arm and started tugging him in the direction of the stairs.

Harry allowed her to tug him, knowing from the shadows of his movement that seemed to shift just off to the side that Owen and Charlie were following. "What is it, Luna?"

"The object that hates the whole world," Luna answered him, giving him a bright glance. "The one I felt in the Headmistress's office. The stones have watched for it, for it moving, and they have told me nothing. I think the truth is otherwise, but I need you with me to divine it."

Harry nodded, and obediently followed until they stood outside the gargoyle, which jumped aside in a moment when it saw Luna. Luna gave it an absent-minded little pat and continued pulling Harry up the moving staircase by main strength. Harry could hear shuffling above them, and guessed that McGonagall had heard or seen them coming, via the wards, and was waiting to meet them.

Sure enough, she nodded when the door into her office opened, and not at all as if she were surprised. "Harry. Miss Lovegood." She lifted her eyes just beyond Harry, and smiled a little. "You might as well come in, Mr. Rosier-Henlin, Mr. Weasley. What can I do for you?"

"I have to test something, Headmistress," said Luna, and then hauled Harry front and center, just before the Headmistress's desk. She was quite strong when she wanted to be, Harry reflected. "I don't think it was moving around after all. I think it was _waking up_, and that was the source of all the trouble. It—" Abruptly, she went still, and snapped her head up and to the side, holding out a hand. All of them were silent, but though Harry listened, he couldn't hear anything.

"There," Luna breathed. "Did you _feel_ that?"

Harry shook his head. "No. Sorry."

"I was wrong, the first time," said Luna triumphantly. "I thought it was an object that could scurry around in the school, and that I felt it at some times and not at others because it was in the office at some times and not at others. Then I thought it must be something Professor Snape carried with him, because he was always nearby when it got angry. But it's getting angry at _you_, too, Harry. So it's always here, but it only wakes up when someone it hates is in the office."

"Where is it?" Harry felt compelled to whisper.

Luna lifted one hand, and unerringly pointed at the wall beyond the Headmistress. "There," she said.

Harry squinted as McGonagall moved out of the way. Secure in its glass case, the Sword of Gryffindor glinted at them.

"The _sword_?" McGonagall sounded befuddled. "The sword hates Harry and Severus? Why would it?"

"The sword is a Horcrux," Harry corrected grimly, pieces falling into place in his mind with a series of _clicks_ so strong they almost hurt. He had always known that one of the Horcruxes was hidden at Hogwarts, and the Sword hadn't been moved out of the building in the last few decades. Voldemort had a penchant for favoring artifacts of the Founders, at least if Slytherin's locket and a ring said to come from a family descended from Slytherin proved anything, and the Sword certainly counted. And during his second year, the Sword had burned him when he tried to touch it. It had done the same thing to Professor Snape; he had confessed that in one of the letters he sent to Harry over the summer while he was at the Malfoys', as if hoping to make Harry feel that he was not alone in being rejected by an artifact supposedly of "good."

"Why would it burn you, though?" Owen asked from behind him. Harry turned to look at him, and saw that he appeared just as confused as McGonagall. "Shouldn't it like you, since the Dark Lord marked you?"

Harry shook his head. "We betrayed him—Professor Snape and I both. We're not good, obedient little servants." He faced the sword, feeling much worse about turning his back on it now, though it hadn't outwardly changed from the blade he remembered. "Do you think that's right, Luna?"

"That's right," said Luna, her face radiating not just serenity but confidence. "You've figured it out, Harry. And now it _really_ hates you." She cocked her head to the side, listening for a moment, and then added, "But it's smug, too. It has something even worse than the usual Unassailable Curse on it. It's sure that you won't manage to destroy it."

"We'll see about that," Harry muttered, then promptly felt silly talking to a sword.

A moment later, though, a curl of darkness unfolded and drifted along the blade, and Harry saw a pair of dark eyes watching him, similar to a pair he'd seen only once before: in Sirius's face, when Voldemort had come close to possessing him completely during third year. The sword hissed, a noise that was a cross between a serpent's hiss and the crackling noise of a fire, and then fell silent.

"What shall we do with it?" McGonagall asked. Harry glanced at her, and saw that, if she had any qualms against believing that an artifact of Gryffindor was a repository of a shard of Voldemort's soul, it was gone now. "It cannot stay here."

"Oh, but it should," said Luna, sounding surprised. "If it's moved, it might find a way to send a message to Voldemort. And it can't actually hurt you, Headmistress. It doesn't even hate you, just those whom Voldemort marked and who betrayed him. It wouldn't even have a problem with Harry if he were just a good little heir or with Professor Snape if he were just a good little Death Eater. We should leave it here until I have a chance to talk to it more and see what the curse on it is." Then she abruptly slipped her hand away from Harry's arm and walked around the desk towards the sword. "Unless I can make it tell me that now."

"Be careful, Luna," Harry said. His heart had jumped into his throat. When each Horcrux was destroyed, he would have to face the shade of Tom Riddle implanted in it, and he had no idea if he was ready to do that, should it come forth now and attack her.

"I told you, it doesn't hate me," said Luna, giving him a patient look, and then leaned forward and hissed softly at the blade. Her eyes closed, and she adopted a listening posture that reminded Harry disturbingly of Professor Trelawney, on the night that she had recited the fourth prophecy to him.

Harry didn't think he'd been in a room that was this silent in a long time. When he glanced back, Owen's face was tight, and Charlie's ashen, as if they were trying to figure out what other objects might be Horcruxes, and the best way to protect Harry from them. McGonagall had already recovered from her fear, of course, by the time Harry looked at her, and was studying the Sword as if contemplating the best way to take it, snap it, and cast the halves into a bonfire.

At last, Luna stepped away from the Sword and gave it a stern look. Harry wondered if she were silently communing with it. Then she turned around and said, "The Unassailable Curse says that someone can't just kill herself in front of the Sword and want to die to destroy the Horcrux. She has to kill herself by stabbing herself through the heart with the Sword."

"_What_?" McGonagall breathed.

"That's impossible," said Owen, disbelief in his voice. "How in the world could anyone do that?"

"That would be, probably, why Voldemort chose that particular curse," Charlie pointed out in a dry tone.

Harry closed his eyes, and the third stanza of the fourth prophecy came back to him.

"_The second, no one can afford_

_To ignore the curse that seems a wall._

_But that curse is true, and from the Lord, _

_And its only destruction is a fall._"

He could feel everyone turning to him as he recited that, but he didn't open his eyes until he'd finished. Then he nodded bleakly to Luna. His throat felt too dry, and his heart too fast. "I think you're right," he said. "I think that _is_ the only way this particular Horcrux can be destroyed. The curse is real, and ignoring it and disdaining it won't get us around it."

"But what does that last line mean, then?" Charlie demanded. "_Its only destruction is a fall?_"

"Mr. Weasley, I'm surprised at you," said McGonagall, in a voice that proved she'd fully recovered herself. "Don't tell me that you've never heard of the honorable tradition of falling on one's sword?"

Harry nodded. "To commit suicide by stabbing oneself with one's sword. That is the only way we're going to kill this Horcrux."

"But no one would—" Charlie stopped, then said, "Can you envision anyone with the courage or the desperation to do that?"

"Not right now, no," said Harry, his eyes lingering on the Sword of Gryffindor. "But we should keep it in mind. I think what the prophecy is warning us against is trying to find some other way around this, or doubting that the curse is real and was placed by Voldemort. We won't find any way around it. We have to do it this way."

He looked at the Headmistress. "I do think it best if the Horcrux remain here for now. It's fairly well-known that you have the Sword of Gryffindor in your office. If it's taken out, then someone might wonder why, and word might reach Voldemort. Do you agree with this?"

"As Miss Lovegood has said, the Sword does not hate me." McGonagall looked self-possessed again. "Yes, I will leave it here."

"Good," said Harry. He gave one last glance at the Sword, and shook his head. _To think that Dumbledore tried to use it as a test of my goodness during second year, and was sure that I wasn't good when the thing ended up burning me._

_Well, one of us was evil, but it wasn't me._

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

It was fairly easy to find the Muggle orphanage, even in the crowded streets of London and in a part of the city where Harry hadn't been before. Thomas could give very precise directions when he wanted to. And they could easily cast a Disillusionment Charm over him, Luna, Charlie, and Owen.

No, the difficult thing was hurrying Luna along when she wanted to stay and talk to the streets.

"But some of these are cobbles laid centuries ago," she complained, when Harry coaxed her away from yet another conversation. "They've never had a chance to talk about all the murders they've witnessed, and they wanted to know if the drunks who lay on them got home safe to their families."

"You can talk to them later," Harry promised, tugging gently on her hand. "But, in the meantime, we might find another Horcrux in the orphanage." Harry thought it at least a likely place, since he knew that one of the Horcrux hiding places was in an unremarkable desk in a narrow room. And Tom Riddle would take advantage of the fact that hardly anyone knew anything about his past, including his mother's name and that he'd been reared among Muggles.

"Oh, that's right, we might," said Luna, and she walked along beside Harry without any more prompting.

They reached the door of the orphanage and slipped through it. The building was so quiet that Harry might have thought it was deserted but for the sounds of children shouting somewhere near the back. It certainly seemed dusty, and Harry guessed that it didn't make very much money.

A heavyset man with a shock of shaggy black hair came into the front room when he heard the door open, but after several glimpses around, he shrugged, scratched the back of his neck, and ambled out again. Harry suspected he was just glad that the prank, which he probably put down to passing adolescents, hadn't been worse.

Luna reached out and ran her hand down a wall that framed a narrow staircase. "They remember him," she breathed. "They've had a few other magical children here, too, but never one like him. He was the strongest. And he did worse things than anyone else, too."

Harry nodded. He wouldn't be surprised if the inbreeding in the Gaunt family had forced evil traits to the surface that otherwise never would have appeared. Voldemort might have been _somewhat_ twisted by his raising among the Muggles, far from the wizarding world, and by the fact that he was an orphan without parents, but that wasn't enough to make someone open the Chamber of Secrets when he was sixteen and decide that he wanted immortality around the same time.

_Unless he was abused._

The thought made Harry squirm a bit, as he thought about the possible similarity between himself and Voldemort. Their souls certainly vibrated in sympathy, enough to allow him to become Voldemort's magical heir. And Lily and Dumbledore had been convinced they had a potential Dark Lord on their hands the night after his attack on Godric's Hollow—

_Stop thinking like that, _he told himself. _Unless you uncover actual evidence of that, you don't know that it happened, and it probably wasn't abuse like you received, anyway. Otherwise, Voldemort would understand more about love and compassion._

"He came up and down these stairs many times," Luna went on in a dreamy voice. Harry heard footsteps coming close to the room again, and hastily raised a silencing spell. The Muggle peered directly at them, shook his head, and left. Luna, locked deep in her trance, her fingers brushing back and forth across the wood like waving tendrils of seaweed or Jing-Xi's hair, didn't notice. "The bottom stair tread didn't like him. He always paused there and leaned around the corner to listen to secrets. Or he took scraps of breakfast from the hungriest children and taunted them with them, and stood here to do it. The other children learned early not to bother him." Luna frowned then, and a note of censure intruded itself into her voice. "He used his magic to punish them if they did anything he didn't like, and they didn't know what it was, but they knew better than to go against him."

Harry understood. Luna was the daughter of a Light pureblood family, reared on the ethic that, even if Muggles weren't equal to wizards, it was wrong to remind them how unequal they really were. The rules against showing off magic in front of Muggles weren't just to protect the wizarding world; they were also to prevent unnecessary outbursts of jealousy and hatred, fear and distress.

"He dragged a girl by her hair across the steps once," Luna whispered. "She was bleeding from a cut on her shoulder. He knelt down in front of her and laughed and whispered to her. The stairs couldn't hear what he said, but it made her faint. He laughed, and cut a lock of her hair." Luna paused again, then said, "And that's what he did with everyone. He _took_ something from them. A lock of hair, a scrap of skin, a fingernail or a toenail. Or, sometimes if they had something that reminded them of their parents, he took that instead. He killed their pets. He set things on fire from a distance, with the power of his mind, and they didn't know how he did it. He made boys bigger than he was back away with a glance. Those were dark years, while he was here."

Harry shivered convulsively. Listening to Luna's soft voice recite things that no one alive, except Voldemort himself, probably knew now made him glance over his shoulder, half-expecting the shade of the handsome, uncaring boy he'd met in the Chamber of Secrets to stride past him.

"And that's all they know," said Luna abruptly, stepping back from the staircase. "They think that the walls in the room where he stayed might know more." She gave a fluttering pat to the wall, as though reassuring it that she would come back and talk more to it later, and then went upstairs. Harry and his guards followed close behind. Harry felt half-useless, but compelled to follow. At least it was much easier to discover the truth this way than it would have been researching on his own.

By the time they caught up with Luna, she was in the middle of an old room that had been converted to a storage closet, from the look of it, though when she knelt down and pushed aside some rubbish that had accumulated on the floor, Harry could see marks that might represent the legs of a bedstead.

"He lived here," Luna said, eyes still closed. "The floor didn't mind him, because he never really did anything but walk across it, but the walls hated him, and the ceiling. They had to watch while he played with his magic and the trophies he took, or, sometimes, burned them, and then the people he took them from would get sick." Luna fell silent again, then said, so softly Harry could hardly hear her, "Once, he burned three trophies, all from the same girl. She died. The Muggles said it was disease—tuberculosis. The walls and the ceiling tried to tell them the truth, because they knew, but the Muggles couldn't hear them."

Harry couldn't help the question. "How old was he then?"

"He'd been in this room for ten years," Luna answered.

She sat in silence for a moment more, then added, "He didn't do that again. The sight of her death was too much for him. He started fearing death, hating it. He stopped caring about hurting other people, unless they'd hurt him, or they _could_ hurt him. He was much more interested in ways to avoid death. The walls say that he read all sorts of books about old magic, alchemy, and sometimes religious books, too, but he wasn't interested in those. He wanted to find some way to survive death inside his body."

_And he found it, too, _Harry thought, sickened and fascinated.

"The floor remembers seeing an old wizard come to fetch him when he'd been here eleven years," said Luna abruptly. "He had a russet beard, and he walked in soft shoes, so the floor liked him. He delivered a letter to the boy. The walls say that he talked about Hogwarts."

_Dumbledore. _And, of course, though Dumbledore had known under which conditions Tom Riddle had grown up, he hadn't tried to interfere. He had thought it best to let the boy have free reign, and free will, and develop into whom he wanted to develop into.

And then, regretting that fiercely by the time Voldemort fell, he'd tried to control Harry strictly, so that there was no chance of his power ever getting out of hand and turning him into a second Tom Riddle.

_He wasn't so much like me after all, _Harry thought, and shook his head to free himself from that chain of associations.

"And then he left," Luna went on, straightening up. "He came back sometimes, for holidays, but never for long, and then he didn't spend as much time in this room. If he did something else nasty, another murder, it was far from the walls. He never had any blood on him when he came back. The floor remembers the taste of blood, since it didn't taste it often."

Harry waited, but Luna had opened her eyes and was standing in the middle of the room, looking sadly at an old, broken bed piled in the corner. It seemed that the room had nothing more to tell her.

"Luna," Harry said quietly. She looked at him. "Do you think there's a Horcrux here?"

Luna shook her head.

_Damn_.

"But there used to be," Luna added.

Harry stood straight. "What makes you think so?"

Luna nodded to a desk in the corner of the room. Looking at it, Harry uttered a low curse as he recognized the desk from the image that the bird had shown him, when trying to share the locations of the Horcrux. "The desk remembers an object that hated the whole world," said Luna. "It was long and slim, and made of wood, like itself, but sometimes it hissed to itself and talked. It was very old."

"A wand?"

Luna drew out her own wand and held it solemnly towards the desk. A moment later, she nodded.

"And someone took it?" Harry asked.

"Someone who walked softly, and contained the living," said Luna, squinting slightly, as if she were reading a page with blurred words. Then her face cleared. "Living _wood_, that's what they mean. Not dead wood like them, already made into objects. A woman made of plants."

Harry groaned. "And she took the Horcrux," he muttered. "I would bet that it's probably hidden in one of her gardens."

_And that would fit the prophecy, too. Isn't there a verse about night's poisoned garden? And this is the third Horcrux we've discovered clues to, too._

"Probably," said Luna, not sounding concerned. "Now, can I go back outside and talk to the cobbles? I've made the room sad. It didn't want to remember the magical boy who lived in it. I want to leave."

"We can," said Harry, since it didn't seem likely they would learn anything more here. He nodded to Owen and Charlie, and they followed him and Luna down the stairs, still heavily under cover of the Disillusionment Charm.

As they went, Harry looked around at the blank wooden walls, and the unwelcoming staircase, and wondered if it had looked any different when Tom Riddle lived here. Had he ever known what happiness was? Had he ever been abused? Had he always thought of his magic as a tool of domination that made him special, better than the people around him, or had there been a point in his life when he innocently tried to share it?

Then Harry shook his head. _This is really only useful as far as it lets me understand him. The boy who lived like that is long dead, and I have to deal with what he is in the present._

_Like me or not, my magical father in a sense or not, he has to die._


	29. Face the Boy Across a Battlefield

**WARNING WARNING WARNING: Really, really severe gore, violence, and torture in the last scene. I deliberately made it as sickening as I could. Please avoid this if you don't want to read it.**

**Chapter Twenty-Two: Face The Boy Across A Battlefield**

"Come here, Indigena."

Indigena went there, her eyes now and then darting from her Lord to the man who crouched at his feet. As she had suspected, it was Lucius Malfoy. But he didn't seem to be bleeding yet, and Indigena had never known her Lord to be _gentle_ about a sacrifice. She didn't know what was going to happen.

But she suspected it, and it was confirmed in the moment that the flesh-snake turned its red eyes to her, and her Lord's voice said, "Hurt him, Indigena."

She bowed, keeping her face still and perfect. That was easier than it might have been for anyone else, thanks to the contours of leaves beneath her face that would hold her muscles in any position she wanted them to—or change her face altogether, to that of Iris Raymonds. "Yes, my Lord. Shall I put him on my thorns?"

"That death takes too long, Indigena," said Voldemort. "I wish you to torture him here, in front of me."

Indigena took a deep breath, and then risked the one thing she could, chose the one path out of confinement. "No, my Lord."

And then the silence was as still and perfect as her face had been. Indigena locked her eyes on the far wall of the burrow and awaited her Lord's explosion. In the meantime, she studied the richness of the soil. Deep and dark, and it stayed where it was put. She regretted that she could not have planted a garden here. She could have reared flowers matched in fineness only by the ones in Thornhall itself.

"What did you say to me?"

What made it worse was the softness. If Indigena hadn't been listening for the tone of intense rage—and hadn't known it would be there anyway, whether or not she listened for it—she might have thought that Voldemort was asking her tenderly, gently, why she had failed to take up this task.

She glanced back at him, looking at his empty eye sockets, eaten by the poison of the Many cobras, and repeated, "No, my Lord."

Another pause of silence, and then Voldemort said, "You must explain this to me, Indigena. You know what will happen if you refuse me for too long." He nodded at Lucius, who remained motionless, though crouched in a position that must have been uncomfortable. "Your body will become mine, and your mind, to do with as I will. You bear the Dark Mark, and I can control you through that, should I choose."

"Yes, my Lord," Indigena acknowledged. She could not deny that. Her hatred of Feldspar would make a fine chain, should her Lord choose to employ it.

"Then explain why you are defying me."

And that was easy, though Indigena doubted Voldemort had meant to make it so. As she recovered from her failure on the Cornwall mission, and heard more and more about what had happened in the wake of the raid on Tullianum, her heart had firmed. She knew death waited at the end of this road, but she had accepted that she would die, in one way or another, ever since she took the Mark. At least she would die on her own two feet. And if her body continued to exist after that, she would still account it dead, because her free will would have perished.

"I am not one for torture alone," she said simply, eyes locked on Voldemort's. "I have not ever been. I did not mind torturing Evan Rosier, my Lord, because I could feed my thorns with his blood and flesh. And I have stood by while you tortured others, and never said a word. And I fed the truth to the Potters because it was the only way they might know justice before their deaths. But lingering pain without a second purpose has never been my choice."

"That does not matter, Indigena," Voldemort said, his voice dangerously flat. "I am asking you to make this choice."

"And it is one that I cannot make," said Indigena, even as she tried to fill her memory with the sound of shifting dirt and the crackling and creaking of a tendril as her rose unfolded around her wrist. "There are some things in me that clash too strongly with my definition of honor. I know that you can control me and _make_ me do them, but in that case, I will not be the one doing them."

Voldemort was silent for a long moment. Then he said, "You came to my side because of honor, Indigena."

She nodded, and sniffed the scents of the soft perfumes drifting around her body, so that she would have their company in the darkness of her enslaved mind.

"I must hold you with honor." Voldemort's voice was softer than she had ever heard it. "You came to me when I was wounded, and aided me without compulsion from the Dark Mark. You have never considered going to Harry and betraying me. I know that. I know the furthest reaches of your mind, and I know that you do not fear my wrath now, because you have refined the fear from your soul." He was silent for long moments more, while Indigena blinked in astonishment. That almost sounded like compassion, and she knew her Lord did not feel compassion.

_He does not, _she thought, as she studied him and the slow way his hand caressed the flesh-snake. _But he knows loyalty. He felt for Nagini, the snake that stayed with him for so many years prior to her death. If I had ever shown doubt in my allegiance to him, some temptation to run, then he would not recognize mine. But I never wavered, and so he recognizes that steadfastness._

"I will not force that sacrifice from you," Voldemort went on.

Indigena bowed, and breathed a bit more easily. It seemed that she would keep a scrap of her honor after all, even as she continued to run down into the darkness.

Voldemort looked down on the kneeling Lucius. "Of course, this does mean that we must find some other use for you," he said, and idly kicked out. Lucius fell over, unable to move, and lay there, his nose to the dirt, while Voldemort contemplated. Indigena thought the position amusing, and fitting for what he had become.

"Ah, yes, I know," said the Dark Lord suddenly, and his voice was a purr as he glanced at Lucius again. "Lucius."

"My Lord?" His words were partially muffled by the floor.

"You will go to Malfoy Manor, and stay there until you see signs of activity." The snake swayed and danced around Voldemort's waist. "I do believe that Harry will be using it as a safe house soon."

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

Draco closed his eyes and bowed his head.

He'd studied wards for the past several days to get to this point, so intently that he hadn't wanted to interrupt his study to go to the orphanage with Harry. He wished Harry well, of course, and he would want to be by his side in battle, but if he was ever to make a contribution to the war effort that didn't lie in Harry's shadow, he would have to do this, which only he could perform.

He could feel the wards around Malfoy Manor throbbing beneath his skin like a heartbeat, or a tumor, when he touched them. The chains tightened and grew thicker when pulled. Draco wasn't going to simply tug on them, though, as he would when raising the Manor's defenses against intruders. He was going to change their very nature, so that only certain people would be able to enter the Manor.

After much discussion with Thomas Rhangnara, Draco had finally chosen wards based on the intentions of the people entering the house. They had to either be completely neutral in the conflict against Voldemort or actively opposed to him. Compliance with either Voldemort or the Ministry would mean being bounced from the wards and unable to enter.

Harry might have been a bit unhappy about that, if he'd known all the details. Draco wasn't. There should be no one innocent caught up in the web. Children who were too young to understand the conflict would be accounted neutral. Members of families who preferred the Ministry to Harry might seek to undermine his war effort so that Juniper could succeed, and though they might deserve shelter, they would have to find it at some other place than Malfoy Manor.

Narcissa had expressed her disapproval in cool tones. Draco had listened to her as politely, and discounted the objections—politely, he hoped. It wasn't as though he would often be visiting the Manor, unless Harry moved there. He didn't have to _live_ in the same house with Mudbloods and Muggles.

But now he had to change the wards.

He sank into deep silence; he sat in his and Harry's bedroom, and right now Harry was rather busy collecting those refugees from Hogwarts who would be going to safety in the Manor. The rest of the Slytherin House knew better than to come near their door, after a short but powerful talk that Draco had had with them the other day. The wards became the only thing that was real, twanging, glinting golden chains that stretched from his body into the distance.

Draco began to change them.

As Rhangnara had told him, he visualized each link changing, the gold that made them up right now bleeding away and being replaced with pewter, the color that Draco had chosen to represent wards based on the guests' intentions. It was hard, of course. The old wards were ancient and thick, and had hosted generations of Malfoys and those rare people they trusted. Most of all, Draco himself had been reared to think it was only right that his family have a place they could retreat from the world, and that the wards provided that place. Changing them involved going against his own convictions as well as the magic.

But along with the visualization and the spells Draco had cast before he began—spells to strengthen his concentration and his will—he had his own beliefs on the matter. He wanted to contribute to the war effort, in a way that only he could. He wanted to be able to make _some_ use of the Manor, which otherwise would sit empty, since his mother had no intention of entering it until she reconciled with Lucius and Draco had no intention of leaving Harry's side. He knew the intense need that Harry's side had for secure, warded properties. He wanted to do something to make Harry proud of him, to show that he was moving on and leaving at least a few of his prejudices behind. Therefore, he would do this.

His new beliefs pushed at the old ones, and Draco felt the chains lessening bit by bit. It helped that he could think of gold as soft and malleable, likely to melt in the fires of his convictions. He knew each link, too, thanks to his status as heir of the Malfoy properties. Each one he saw as dimming in color and shifting in properties, and, little by little, reluctantly, they changed.

Then a flash of golden light enveloped him, and he felt another will shoving back against himself, as if a second Malfoy opposed his intent to change the wards.

Draco kept calm. Rhangnara had told him this might happen. Old houses quite often had some protection built into their wards, so that a rebellious child, a blood traitor, or someone who had managed to fool the wards into thinking he was of the family could not change or drop the defenses on a whim. This was a fragment of the spirit of an ancestor, come to test Draco's courage.

Draco answered with a flash of pewter light, and all the arrogance he could muster. _I am Draco Malfoy, son of Lucius Malfoy and Narcissa Black, only heir of the line, accepted joining partner of the most powerful undeclared wizard in the British Isles and the only _vates _in the world. Who are you?_

The voice hesitated, and Draco gained some ground, changing five golden links to gray before it could respond. Then it answered, _It does not matter who I am. What matters is that you are degrading the wealth and pride of our heritage!_

Draco laughed. _You can't even remember, can you? _Again the hesitation, and Draco pushed against the center of that strength, which seemed to hover in the air somewhere between the chains. _You might not even be a Malfoy, but a wandering ghost caught and held by the wards, or some bastard child condemned here because you were no use to the family otherwise. At the least, you have no proud name to match mine._

_Do you know what you are doing to _this _proud name?_ The voice was screeching now, and Draco imagined a tiny stamping figure like a house elf, because it amused him.

_Of course I know, _he said, _and I know that as true Malfoy heir, the wards and the Manor are mine to do with as I like._

The voice snarled back at him, and then seemed to decide to use all its strength in shoving against him. But Draco was past the midpoint now, with the chains all around him changed to pewter and the colors rippling away from him, flowing down the wards to the horizon, melting the gold. He knew he was going to succeed.

Flash, and change, and spurt like a starburst, and then the voice wailed in indignity and went back to its place as a guardian. Draco blinked, and opened his eyes to what felt like a changed world—shards of glass grinding under his skin. He had been told to expect that, too, until the wards had time to get used to their new nature and the Manor to its changed status.

He didn't care. He had done it, and Harry would find out and look at him with love and pride, and Draco had enough love and pride in himself for any ten wizards even if Harry didn't.

He flopped back on their bed then, a small smile on his face, and slept for two hours.

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry sighed. He had argued with Michael Rosier-Henlin for an hour, and if the boy didn't want to go with his mother and little sister to Malfoy Manor for safety, then he didn't have to go. Harry wished that _someone_ would have, however, since none of his sworn companions had been enthusiastic about the idea of Michael staying with Harry and swearing another oath.

Instead of thinking about Michael, who currently stood behind him in Medusa's room with arms folded and looked ready for another fight, Harry turned to Medusa. "You have everything you need, Madam?" he asked gently.

Medusa nodded wanly. She had Eos wrapped close in her arms, and a small trunk floating behind her that contained the objects she'd managed to create or been given in Hogwarts. Though several people had tried to help her, Harry suspected she hadn't taken anything but those items she truly needed for her baby daughter. Medusa obviously didn't like charity.

"Then we may leave," said Harry, and escorted her down to the entrance hall, where the other refugees who would go to Malfoy Manor were waiting. Medusa buried her head in Eos's baby blanket and refused to look up. Eos was awake, Harry saw, but watching everything with large solemn eyes, absurdly quiet for a baby of five months old. Harry thought about making absurd faces to see if she would laugh—she was supposed to be his goddaughter, after all—but refrained, in the end. He didn't think Medusa would appreciate it.

Most of the other refugees straightened up the moment they saw him, and Harry nodded carefully to them. Thirty-five people, most of whom had fled to Hogwarts for safety immediately after the first vampire attack, or in the wake of the first attacks on Harry's allies. Ignifer and Honoria were among them, though Ignifer was going mostly as a bodyguard for the others, Harry thought, and Honoria because she would not be parted from Ignifer. She currently stood upright with the aid of a wooden leg, cheerfully refusing any more help, and making jokes about losing limbs that didn't seem to reassure the anxiously hovering Ignifer at all.

"We'll go out beyond the wards around Hogwarts to the edge of the Hogsmeade road, and Apparate," said Harry quietly, drawing their attention. "I know that I've shown Malfoy Manor to most of the adults, but does anyone else require a glimpse of it?"

Heads shook. Most of the party was tense and unsmiling, Harry saw—probably intimidated at the thought of venturing out beyond Hogwarts for the first time in a few months, even though they'd agreed to leave the school so as to be farther away from Harry in the case of a direct attack by Voldemort, and even though the transfer to the safehouse at Silver-Mirror had gone perfectly. Well, perhaps they did have something to worry about.

Harry stayed closed to Medusa and Eos as they left, but it wasn't long before Ignifer came up to him, bouncing her wand across her palm.

"Why isn't Malfoy accompanying us?" she asked.

It took Harry a moment to realize she was talking about Draco, and he smiled a little ruefully. "He still has his share of pride," he answered. "He has agreed to let strangers live in his home, but he would prefer not to watch as they possess it."

Ignifer grunted. Harry wondered if she was saying she could understand that. They walked a few feet further in silence, and then Ignifer said. "Do you think he will mind if I kill his father?"

Harry blinked twice, then glanced at her. "You know that Lucius is a slave to Voldemort, and did not—"

"He cut off Honoria's leg." Ignifer's voice was soft, and Harry might not have thought she was furious except for the curl of flame bubbling over the edge of her hair. "I want him dead."

"I can't let you kill him," said Harry.

"Even in the heat of battle?"

Harry was forced, sharply, to remember that Ignifer _had_, after all, Declared for Dark, and could presumably use subtlety and cunning when she wanted to. She acted enough like a Light witch most of the time that he could forget.

Instead of replying with the sharp tirade she probably expected, therefore, he said mildly, "Do you know, each time I think the lesson of misplaced vengeance is going to strike my allies, and yet it _never_ seems to work? Bulstrode, Parkinson, Starrise, Snape—the list of those who have fallen victim to it is abnormally long. I suppose that I shouldn't be surprised to see another case beginning."

Ignifer's spine stiffened, and then she glanced away from him. "You have made your point," she murmured, so gently that Harry could hardly hear her. "But I still want Malfoy dead."

"I can understand that," said Harry, his heart beating harder with relief. "What I can't understand is giving up your duty to guard others—your duty to guard your partner, in fact—to chase misplaced vengeance."

Ignifer gave a curt nod. "You need not worry about that."

"Good." Harry squeezed her arm briefly, then lifted his head. They had passed the edge of Hogwarts's anti-Apparition wards. He raised his voice. "Now, concentrate on the image of Malfoy Manor, and Apparate."

He gently took Medusa's arm, although he knew she probably didn't need the help, and closed his eyes. The image of the blue-gray house he'd seen so many times showed clearly on the back of his eyelids, and he jumped.

There was a bright twitch of the world around him, several sharp _cracks_ as people came into being, and then screams. Harry's eyes flew open, and he moved to put himself between Medusa and Eos and danger.

Lucius Malfoy was attacking from the left.

He didn't look at all like either the Lucius Harry had known or the Death Eater Harry had heard mentioned during the First War—thought that latter might have something to do with his lack of a cloak and a mask, Harry thought, finding humor, somehow, in the haze of his anger and shock. His hair flew around him, and his face was covered with dirt as if he had spent days lying in it. His wand shot spells without pause, so he must be doing them nonverbally. And almost all of them were pain curses. He hadn't raised a shield that Harry could see.

Almost certainly, Voldemort intended Lucius to die fighting Harry.

Harry heard Ignifer give a snarl, and snapped at her without turning around, even as he raised a _Protego_ around the target of Lucius's first pain curses, a woman with three small children. "Get them into the Manor and stay with them, Ignifer!"

There came a moment shared between Lucius's deflected curses and Ignifer's silent struggle to obey. Harry knew he'd won both when Lucius had to duck and Ignifer spoke from behind him in a loud, deliberately calm voice, chivvying people towards the Manor's front door.

Lucius's eyes locked on Harry. Harry felt his heart ache with pity. They only held insanity on the surface. Someone else looked out of the bottom of them, and that person was begging for help.

"Fight me, Potter," Lucius whispered, and his wand struck out, with a curse Harry knew well—the Blood Whip.

Harry dropped the shield, which would explode in the face of that curse, and rolled smoothly on the ground. The curse shot over his head, and from the scream that followed, Harry knew it hadn't struck someone, that that was just a cry of fear; he knew the sounds of pain too well. He stood and concentrated on the image of Lucius standing motionless, while relaxing the barriers on his magic the way that Jing-Xi had taught him.

The air flooded with images of shadowy cats and snakes, and Lucius slowed down, his movements heavily weighted. Harry began to breathe a bit more easily. If he could hold Lucius still, it was possible he could recapture him, and hold him in one place until he managed to talk him out of the hatred Voldemort was still using to cage him. On no account would Harry kill him, not if he still had a choice.

"Do you remember me, Lucius?" he asked softly. "The man who made a truce-dance with you? The man who gave you the gift of Parseltongue, and received a link to the wards of Malfoy Manor in return? Your son's lover?" He took several steps forward, never removing his eyes from Lucius's. "You left behind a son and a wife who love you, who are willing to share their lives with you if you return. Isn't that better than what you have now, Lucius?"

Lucius squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, though, given the weight of Harry's magic on him, it moved as slowly as though he were underwater. Harry could feel the strands of compulsion winding around him, originating from the Dark Mark on his left arm. If Voldemort possessed the ability to make Lucius go against him, Harry thought, it would come from that.

"You can do this," Harry whispered. "You can struggle. I know you can. I've fought enough times with you, you stubborn bastard." He made sure to lace his voice with affection. True insults might drive Lucius back into the arms of the Dark Lord. "I refuse to believe that you would give up simply because you're fighting Voldemort."

Slowly, Lucius's eyes opened. Harry looked into them, quietly, confidently. The insanity had dimmed. Something like sense was rising to the surface again.

"You can do this," Harry coaxed. "Narcissa misses you. Draco misses you. Isn't that worth more than all the hatreds you've held on to, the clever plans you wove that couldn't save you, the—"

Lucius's eyes moved past him, and towards the Manor. A moment later, a flood of vile, foreign magic filled the air around him, and Harry's hold snapped like leaves. Lucius snarled and lifted his wand again.

Harry knew Voldemort must have used the image of people who weren't Malfoys entering the Manor to fire Lucius's hatred. He moved, not to hurt Lucius but to raise a shield and then tug on the magic that flowed between him and Voldemort, wrapping it around himself and refusing to let more run down the tunnel. Voldemort was exerting an awful lot of effort to reach Lucius from this distance. If Harry could make that hard, he might give up his pawn rather than take a wound.

It didn't seem so, though, perhaps because Voldemort could also command Lucius to use his own magic. Lucius used a sharp green lightning bolt, which resembled some curses Harry had seen before but which he didn't actually know, and which turned out to explode shields. Harry found himself flat on his back, gasping, his control over his magic shattered and his cheek flayed open almost to the bone.

He lunged upright, reaching again for Lucius, this time envisioning the cloud cage that had contained Hawthorn, and which he would make proof against Apparition.

But Voldemort had learned his lesson about sacrificing pawns. Lucius Apparated out moments before the air around him turned thick and golden.

Harry cursed, slamming a fist against the ground to relieve the feeling. His magic turned the grass to molten glass. Harry blinked, shivered, and stood, cradling his hand against his side. He heard pounding footsteps behind him and turned, eyes scanning the ground for casualties. There was no one dead, but a blood trail led towards the door of the Manor.

Ignifer was running towards him, wand held high. She skidded to a stop at the sight of his bleeding cheek, her flames leaping around her like a wall. "He hurt you," she said. Her narrowed eyes traveled past him to lock on the place where Lucius had stood. "And escaped."

"What part of 'stay with them' did you not understand?" Harry asked. His chest was heaving, but his mind was perfectly clear. He had lost hold of Lucius, but he would most likely have other chances. His wound was minor, the least of his worries; it could have been so much worse. He frowned at Ignifer, who looked taken aback. "I told you to remain with the refugees in the Manor. You're the strongest witch among them. They need your protection."

"I…" Abashed, Ignifer looked away from him.

Satisfied that she had the point, Harry softened his voice. "I know. You saw me hurt. But sometimes that doesn't matter, Ignifer. Sometimes you need to make the hard choices, and my life is worth less than the lives of thirty-six people—thirty-seven, counting yourself. Do you understand?"

Ignifer nodded, though she didn't look happy about it. "Why do you think Malfoy was here?" she asked, changing the subject.

"Voldemort probably sent him for his knowledge of the territory, and to punish both me and him by making me face him in battle," said Harry, pushing aside the thought of what he would say to Narcissa and Draco when next he saw them. It hadn't been his fault that he lost Lucius; he had not known that Voldemort could force his captured Death Eaters to go against Harry's magic. In the future, he would know that. "I imagine that we'll see him again."

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Adalrico had been waiting.

He had felt something more than despair ever since Pharos Starrise had died whimpering over the sound of his own bones. The hatred that had condemned him to serve under the Dark Lord was ended. He could not look at the fingerbones hanging in the corner of the burrow room where he brewed his potions and feel his loathing towards the Starrise family with the same intensity as before.

_Pharos has a brother…_

But Tybalt Starrise had done nothing to him, and Adalrico most often ignored the voice in his head in favor of staring at the fingerbones again, and daydreaming about the day of the Tullianum raid.

Sometimes, now, in a corner of his mind so deep that he barely allowed himself to realize it existed, he dreamed of Millicent, and Marian, and Elfrida. He dreamed of them, and he dreamed, too, that he had been allowed to go back to them, somehow rescued and redeemed from his chains in the blackness.

But he had never thought seriously that he might have a chance like that—at least until Lucius Malfoy Apparated back from Malfoy Manor, and the full might of Voldemort's anger descended on him. As Adalrico knelt, eyes on the floor, in a corner of the throne room, he felt the chains on his own mind slip a little. Voldemort was intent on making Lucius pay, so intent that he wasn't keeping as tight a leash on his other recalled servants as he should.

Adalrico let his eyes track, inch by inch, over to Hawthorn Parkinson, but saw no twitch of movement from her. Then he remembered that she had other hatreds to chain her here. One of them, Indigena Yaxley, stood a few feet from her, arms folded as she watched the interplay between Lucius and Voldemort with a resigned expression. And Hawthorn was probably dreaming of killing Lucius herself.

Feldspar Yaxley was absent, but he would probably have been too cowardly to move even if he was here, Adalrico knew.

So this was his chance alone, should he choose to take it.

The screaming from Voldemort about Lucius's failure, mingled with the hissing of his snake, went on and on, and even a few of the other Death Eaters—minus Sylvan Yaxley, who was cycling into Oaken Yaxley just at that moment—began to shift uneasily. Adalrico knew they were thinking about the rage and hatred behind that screaming, and what might happen should Voldemort decide that Lucius was not enough of a target for him.

Adalrico knew that his own disappearance would increase those emotions in the Dark Lord, but he did not care. He couldn't do anything to save either Lucius or Hawthorn. He felt something like himself for the first time in months. He wanted to go back to his wife and daughters, and if Voldemort's hold on him lessened any more, then he was going to take the chance.

Voldemort leaned forward in his throne, the snake actually slithering off his lap to confront Lucius, and his hold lessened.

Adalrico took the chance.

He focused all his thoughts on the house at Blackstone, since it was the place he knew best, and certainly better than trying to Apparate to Hogwarts and being bounced from the wards. Once he was back in his house, he could raise the wards. He had designed the ward-destroying stones. He knew their weaknesses, and he could resist anyone trying to reach him. The hardest part would be fighting the call of the Dark Mark, but with his hatred held back, he could do even that.

Just one moment more, to let the library of Blackstone coalesce in his mind's eye.

And then Voldemort noticed him.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Indigena lifted her head. Before, she had not felt that the atmosphere around her was truly dangerous. Her Lord would scream, and he would torture Lucius to death, but she had already expected that.

Now, though, silence filled the air like smoke from a fire, and Adalrico Bulstrode was making little, choked, helpless sounds, holding his head in his hands as Voldemort and his snake stared at him.

_He tried to escape, _Indigena realized, as she watched the others straighten. _And our Lord sensed him._

She could almost feel the vast weight of Voldemort's anger swinging, centering now not on Lucius, who had only failed him, but on the man stupid enough to oppose him. Indigena took a moment to fortify herself, raising the same shields against compassion that she had during Severus Snape's torture in the Chamber of Secrets. She did not care for the torture, but she would not interfere. It was not her place.

"Indigena."

She clenched her fists, causing the thorny rose to try and worm its way into her hand so that it could spread the fingers, and looked up at her Lord. "Yes, my Lord?"

"I assume that your prohibition against torture extends to torturing Adalrico, as well?" The calm in Voldemort's voice made the statement worse.

Indigena nodded in silence. She was not sure that her Lord would actually give her a choice when he was this enraged, but she had to refuse the opportunity to torture no matter what.

"That does not matter," Voldemort whispered. "That does not matter. I am minded to try something that requires the sacrifice of a Death Eater—one who took the Mark willingly, one whose Mark my magic may circle through. Only the rarity of my servants until now kept me from trying it. And now that I have a servant I may sacrifice, and one versed in the necessary torture, there is no need to hold back any longer." His voice changed, to a whipcrack. "Oaken!"

"My Lord." Indigena's cousin rose to his feet, showing off the brown-bronze eyes and stern face of the quieter Yaxley twin.

"You have tortured people, I know," said Voldemort.

"One every month for the last ten years, yes, my Lord," said Oaken, without flinching or changing his expression. "Unwilling sacrifices are necessary to maintain our invulnerability."

"Then you will have no objection to taking this man and doing what I tell you to do with him." Voldemort pointed his finger, and the snake jerked its head, at Adalrico.

Oaken did not blink. "No, my Lord."

"Excellent." Voldemort stood from his throne and walked steadily forward, the snake gliding next to his heels to insure that he did not do so blindly. "Stretch him spread-eagle, then. Indigena, your vines are required to bind."

Adalrico made small, futile motions as if he wanted to struggle, but their Lord's control over him was too complete to let him do so. As she made vines sprout from the earth to tie him, Indigena felt a moment's stab of pity for him. And then it was gone back into the washing tide of horror, as she watched Oaken stride forward and crouch down over Adalrico, insuring that his limbs went where they needed to go.

When that was done, Oaken glanced up at Voldemort, who stood looking down at Adalrico as if he still had eyes.

"The Death Eaters swear an oath to me," Voldemort whispered. "That is the true secret of service, that oath. _Do you consent to serve me all the days of your life? _That created a bond that cannot be broken, and the Mark is the visible sign of it." He outlined the Dark Mark in the air above Adalrico's left arm, though he did not touch it. It was so quiet, save for his words, that Indigena could hear as well as feel her heartbeat. She felt the other Death Eaters leaning forward all along the wall, trying to guess what would happen next and how to avoid it themselves.

"Adalrico's time to serve me, alive, is done," said Voldemort, and then sank to the floor. "Oaken Yaxley, I desire you to make a Dark Mark of Adalrico Bulstrode, to see that his body imitates in shape what his arm bears. Do not touch his left arm, but warp every other part of him as you see fit. And make sure he stays alive and conscious."

"My Lord," said Oaken, and bowed, and began.

Indigena watched, both because she felt Adalrico was owed a witness to his demise and because she thought she knew what her Lord would do to her if she were to look away.

She saw Adalrico's belly opened, the intestines drawn out like braided ropes, twined around his body in the shape of the snake, running from shoulder to shoulder and arm to arm to form the sinuous curves. She saw his legs broken and reformed, the bones in them used to suggest the pattern of scales; Oaken spent a long time on that, as if the detail were important. She saw his head twisted to the side and then bent inwards to his chest. His torso would become the center of the skull, Indigena saw. His ribs were broken and extended through the skin to form the teeth of the skull. Large, bloody patches of overturned flesh made the eyes. Adalrico's right arm was obliterated, pieces of it used to carefully layer the dome of the skull.

And all the while, Adalrico screamed, until he could scream no more. What stopped him was not the exhaustion of his voice, but the placement of his mouth. Indigena saw a pair of lips opening and shutting somewhere in the center of the skull design, but Oaken—well, it was Sylvan by then—smoothed a hand over them, and they shut forever, so as not to disrupt the harmony of the design.

Soon it became impossible to think of what lay before them as Adalrico Bulstrode, or as human at all. It was a Dark Mark sculpted in skin, in bone, in flesh and organs and quivering meat.

And through it all, the left arm remained untouched, the Dark Mark uncovered, black and gleaming in the dim light of the burrow.

When it was done, Sylvan stood back and looked at the Dark Lord for further instructions. Indigena, breathing heavily against her own nausea, looked, too. Her Lord's eyes were not open, of course, but his snake-like, bone-white face conveyed his deep bliss in the twins' work.

"Now," said Voldemort, his voice barely above a whisper, "make a cut in my left side. Use your magic. It must go to my magical core."

Indigena had a faint inkling, then, of what her Lord intended to do. He could use the magic of his Death Eaters because of the Dark Marks. His power could run through the Marks in a vast circle instead of draining.

But she did not know, yet, whether she was right. So she was forced to watch as Sylvan cut a hole in her lord's left side, and dug deep, using magic to keep him alive all the while, aiming straight for the magical core. Indigena listened to the intently muttered spells with detached admiration. At some point, Sylvan—Oaken now—would need to cross the divide that separated the world of soul and spirit from the world of flesh and blood, and they were doing so even as they kept up the work of cutting. In their own way, they were true artists.

She thought that a moment before she vomited.

Her Lord did not seem to notice. Of course, he had not wavered since the cutting began, instead staring at the Dark Mark made of Adalrico, his face unchanging. And then he started, and Indigena knew that Oaken must have reached the magical core.

"Bring up his left arm," he whispered. "Press the Dark Mark to the hole in my core."

Oaken didn't hesitate, separating the left arm from the rest of Adalrico's body by a simple Cutting Charm, and then feeding it through the hole in Voldemort's left side, murmuring another spell that would let the limb cross that same divide between the world of spirit and flesh.

The world shook and quivered. Voldemort placed his right hand on the Mark made of flesh, and Indigena felt the moment—as a crawling in her left arm—when he began to draw up his magic.

The magic tried to drain out the hole in her Lord's magical core that Harry had cut with his variant of the Fisher King Curse—

And was stopped. The Dark Mark contained a piece of Voldemort, and the magic drained into Adalrico's Dark Mark, circled through it, and then circled back into the magical core itself.

At the same moment, Voldemort intoned, "_Ebibo minutalem!_"

The Dark Mark under Voldemort's hand, all that was left of Adalrico, softened and shook, and then writhed up and plastered itself around Voldemort like one of the fake masks Indigena had seen Muggles wearing for Halloween. It clung there for long moments until it abruptly all softened further and streamed into the cut in his left side. Sealed twice, Indigena thought, dazed, with the Dark Mark providing the immediate plug to the hole and the flesh shaped into a Dark Mark providing a second, symbolic plug on top of that.

And, since Adalrico had taken the Dark Mark of his own free will—as had every Death Eater, or Voldemort would not have accepted them—there was a good chance that this counted as a willing sacrifice.

The burrow flooded with magic. Indigena could not see. She could hear her Lord laughing, and smell her own vomit, and taste the heavy tang of blood, and feel soft musky fur pressing against her skin, but she could not see. The Dark Lord had arisen again, and he was cloaked in Darkness.

She _did_ know that the magic raised in this burrow was beyond anything she had ever felt before, that Voldemort was the most powerful wizard she had ever encountered, and her knees bent without conscious volition, casting her down with humbled mind and bowed head.

Voldemort laughed, and laughed and laughed, and the Darkness went up like an unfolding flag to challenge the dominion of the Light, promising terror and torture and magic resurrected—the life of despair, the death of hope.


	30. Intermission: In Transition

**Intermission: In Transition**

A tunnel opened between Millicent and the distance, in what she later understood as the moment her father died.

She choked and fell to one knee, hearing her mother's soft, anxious voice asking her what was wrong. Millicent put up a hand, but was unable to speak as her vision flooded with darkness and light, alternating pulses of it that at last settled into a single image: a clenched, black stone fist on a white background, with _Duramus_ written beneath it in dark letters.

By that, the symbol of Bulstrode, she knew that her father was dead, and from this moment on she must be the head of the Bulstrode family in truth as well as in name.

The fist spun away in the next moment, and Millicent saw a storm of dark snowflakes flying towards her. She spread her arms to embrace them, though the power of the transition still would not let her rise from her knees.

The magic hit her as the transfer of gifts began between her and her father. She had been his magical heir, and so his power did not flee at his death, to become one of the many wandering shades summoned on Walpurgis Night, but gave itself to her. Millicent felt the capacity for blackfire grow strong in her stomach. The secrets of Blackstone unfolded themselves in her head like songs she had always known but temporarily forgotten. The last and most terrible defense of the Bulstrodes—the Medusa gaze, never to be used on anyone who would escape alive to tell of it—flared behind her eyes.

And then it was done.

Millicent knelt where she was for long moments, eyes still shut. She had fallen one person, and she would rise another. From this moment, the future and the fortunes of her family depended on her.

When she stood, her eyes were empty of tears, her face calm, but that fact alone made her mother burst into tears and cling to her. Millicent smoothed her hair, one part of her mind on the mourning that would need to be done, one part of her mind on Marian—her heir, now, in truth as well as name—and one part thinking of the message she would need to send to France.

It was a time of war, but that only meant that the future of Bulstrode was less secure than ever. It did not bring an end to obligations, or to the life that would need to continue when the war was done. Millicent intended to summon Pierre Delacour, marry him as their families had already agreed, and do what she could to conceive an heir. She would not ordinarily have rushed to have children, but she might not be alive a year from now, and Marian was a slender thread to hang everything on. She must do what she could.

_More than just my blood flows in me._

"Was it swift?"

Millicent blinked and looked down at Elfrida's face. She was about to say that she did not know the answer to that question, but when she opened her mouth, she found she did. Echoes of agony rolled through her muscles.

"No," she said. "It was slow, and there was much pain."

Her mother shut her washed-out, pale blue eyes, and slowly nodded. Then she seemed to gather strength to herself. Millicent knew that, in important ways, that was a lie. That strength was always there, but for the most part Elfrida leaned on her husband in public and summoned it only to defend her children.

Now the task of defending at least one of her children would always be hers. So when her face bristled with an edge of gold, and her body filled with the lioness strength of the _puellaris_ witch, Millicent was not surprised.

"That is as it must be," she murmured. "Will you be using the Stone Chamber?"

Millicent considered that for a moment. The Stone Chamber was the last refuge of the Bulstrodes, never revealed to anyone outside the family; not even all those who married among them had known of it, unless they had revealed themselves to be as loyal and trustworthy as Elfrida had been to Adalrico. In that chamber, members of the family could be transformed to statues and endure a war or a persecution that way, behind an Unassailable Curse that only the willingly spilled blood of Bulstrode could negate.

There was a chance, of course, that they might be left that way forever if no free member of the family survived the war or persecution. But Millicent would leave a vial of blood just in case, and if worst came to worst, there was Edith Bulstrode, her third cousin, Henrietta's daughter, studying in France.

_They will come out of this alive._

"I think we must," she said, opening her eyes and staring into her mother's. "I do not know what Father died to bring about, but I know that the Dark Lord was happy. Things are about to get worse. Much worse." She added the notion of warning Harry to her list of what she had to do.

Elfrida nodded shallowly. "Then I would prefer to become a statue with Marian, and stay there, knowing no one can harm us."

Millicent kissed her mother on the brow. "It shall be done." She turned to face the Hogwarts Owlery. She would send the message to Pierre first, and then find Harry.

Her father would have no funeral. Millicent knew, as surely as she knew anything, that there was no body left.

But she did fill one fist with crystalline light as she went to the Owlery, turning it the color of quartz, and directed one glinting beam through a window into the sky, where it might shine.

_Farewell, Father. Even in death, there is life, and there is life beyond it, in the form of the blood that must continue._

_Duramus._


	31. It Gets Uglier

**Warning: Gore.**

**Chapter Twenty-Three: It Gets Uglier**

Harry nodded. "I understand, Millicent. Thank you for the warning." He stroked the scar on his left arm, the only remnant of his bond with Adalrico, before he could help himself.

Millicent followed his gesture with her eyes, and then shook her head. "Just because my father is dead does not mean the alliance is broken," she said. "I fully intend to fight at your side, Harry. The only time I should be absent from the battle is for my wedding, and for the birth itself, assuming that we're unlucky enough to have the war continue throughout my pregnancy."

Harry frowned. "Most pureblood witches don't fight when they're pregnant. Dark ones, at least." He'd read enough history as a child to know that. So important were those pureblood children that pregnant witches sometimes vanished from society for a year altogether, partly to protect the child and partly to give birth in absolute safety and avoid attempts by enemies to destroy the newborn infants.

A faint curve of her lips was the only response from Millicent, who cocked her head to the side. "I am not most witches, Harry. And I do have an heir, unlike many of them—just not a child of my own blood. Not yet. I accepted the formal family oath knowing what it could mean. There are spells that conceal the magical signature of a baby." She gave a brief flex of her arm. "And there's one advantage to being a tall, hefty Bulstrode woman, you know. It's much harder for people to tell you're pregnant than it would be with one of those delicate little witches."

Harry nodded. "If you're sure."

"I am." Millicent caught his eye. "And I don't want you to blame yourself for my father's death, either. He was already dead, unless he managed to escape. I would have had to kill him the next time I saw him."

Harry gave a convulsive shudder. He couldn't imagine giving up on someone like that. There were times he was glad that his morals were closer to the Light's than the Dark's, whatever education he might have received in Dark pureblood history or rituals.

Millicent turned and left their bedroom. Harry glanced across at Draco, who sat on the edge of their bed and had his head buried in his arms, muttering. Millicent had interrupted their conversation about Lucius. Harry had let her on seeing her face, since he knew it was an important message she carried, but in some ways he thought he should have shut her out. Now Draco had retreated into himself.

"Draco?" he asked gently.

"If I'd gone!" Draco exclaimed, tossing his head upright. "If _I_ had gone, then he might have seen me, and his love for me might have let him overcome that damn hatred. From what you said, you were close. Voldemort's hold on him must have been weaker than we thought. If I were there, he could have broken free."

"You can't blame yourself for that." Harry wrapped his arms around Draco and drew him back so that he lay against his chest. "No one knew Lucius was going to attack. I thought there _might_ be an attack. Voldemort knows the kind of house I'll look for to be a refuge, and Malfoy Manor is a natural choice, assuming the wards changed. But we couldn't have known it would be him."

Draco turned and pressed his face into Harry's shoulder, keeping it there. "I just don't like it," he muttered. "I hate regret, but this time I can't help feeling it."

Harry stroked his hair and bent his head so that his face nuzzled into his partner's neck. "I know."

Draco's hold on him gradually eased, and then he sat back, shaking his head. "Will there be some of those foreign Aurors around Malfoy Manor?" he asked. Harry thought he saw a shine of tears in the corners of Draco's eyes. Wisely, he did nothing to draw attention to it.

"Yes. Esperanza's people. I'm dividing them between all the safehouses." Harry clasped Draco's hand, ignoring the half-hearted gesture he made to move it aside. "And they're doing some good, Draco. There was a skirmish near Cobley-by-the-Sea the other day that was probably a result of Death Eater recruiters visiting Dark families in the area. The Aurors didn't manage to capture any, but none of them escaped. Voldemort won't receive any information about safehouses in the area."

Draco cocked his head curiously. "It doesn't bother you that your allies are so much more willing to kill than you are?"

Harry shook his head. "No. I know it has to happen. I know it's war. I'm trying to get more used to doing it myself." One of the first things Narcissa had said when she heard about Lucius's failed attack, her head held high and her lips tightly shut, was that Harry should have killed Lucius if he could not hold him. That way, Lucius would not be alive to kill someone else in the future. "But a swift death is better than many people will be able to hope for in this war, and better than what Voldemort will offer. I won't be against those who can offer it, and who are willing to offer it. I _will_ be against torture, and unwilling sacrifice, and the murder of innocents."

"Sometimes," Draco breathed, "I wonder if you should not be. You wouldn't have a semi-war with the Ministry if you were more committed to demonstrating your power, Harry, or looking away from exceptions to your rules."

"Yes, but that would mean compromising myself irrevocably." Harry rolled onto his back, still holding Draco in his arms. He intended to visit Narcissa again soon—his first attempt at comforting her about Lucius had been anything but good—but there was no reason he had to hurry. And it was pleasant to lie here, cradling Draco. It would give him strength to continue during many hours when he didn't have it. "And I fear that more, the loss of my principles."

Draco laughed softly and nestled more fully against him. "I don't think you could do that, Harry. There's no true darkness inside you."

Harry stared up at the canopy of the four-poster bed, and stroked Draco's hair, and didn't answer. He _did_ think about telling Draco his secrets, sometimes, but then Draco came out with something like this, and Harry wished for nothing but to preserve that innocence untainted.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

It was manifestly obvious to Narcissa that Harry did not understand _why_ his attempts at comforting her had failed.

He assumed it was partially his fault that Lucius was in Voldemort's service, and that she needed apologies from him, and reassurances that they would win him back. But it was not his fault. It was Lucius's, for succumbing to the spell of hatred in the first place, and perhaps making it imperative for Draco to kill him, should they meet in battle. Harry had made a mistake by not killing or capturing Lucius during his raid on Malfoy Manor, but that had nothing to do with why Lucius had gone back to the Dark Lord.

Narcissa would welcome the chance at reconciliation with her husband if it could happen. But she would not, could not, live in a dream world where that hope ruled her. She would, and _had to_, exist in the hard, real world where he was the servant of an enemy.

So, when Harry slipped back into her room after an hour when he'd spent time with Draco—she could tell that at a glance—Narcissa told him the truth. "It was not because of you that Lucius went to the Dark Lord," she told Harry.

He gave her a confused glance. "I know that," he said. "Even if he hates me, I'm only one among many people he hates."

Narcissa shook her head. "You are not responsible for casting him there," she repeated, "and therefore, you are not responsible for winning him back. The next time, if he endangers our allies or a safehouse, strike hard, Harry. Kill him. It would be better than leaving him alive to serve as a slave and to point up a vulnerability in our side. He would thank you if he could."

Harry narrowed his eyes and studied her as if she were speaking in a language he had never heard before. "Why, Mrs. Malfoy?" he asked at last. "Don't you want your husband back?"

"Narcissa," she corrected him, for at least the hundredth time since they'd met. "And of course I do. But I would rather not see your attention divided and distracted with _getting_ him back. Surely you can understand that much, Harry."

"He didn't manage to do more than wound me and one other person at the safehouse today—"

"That does not matter," Narcissa cut him off. "And the next time, it will be worse. I have put him aside from my heart, Harry, and if you are holding back in anticipation of inflicting some fatal blow on me, you need not worry about it."

"And Draco?"

Narcissa closed her eyes. She could not say that her son was as fully mature as she was, as able to put his father aside from his heart and embrace what must be done. That didn't mean that he would object, though, or ever show his grief to Harry. What he wanted more than anything was his own adult life, and that had to have Harry in it. It did not _have_ to have Lucius. Lucius's own actions over the past year and a half had made sure of that, lessening Draco's dependence on him in a way that he had never expected or desired.

"He will not be as sanguine as I am, but he will survive," she told him. "I know that half the reason you held back was because of us, Harry."

"Half the reason," said Harry, and his voice had grown cooler than Narcissa expected. "But that leaves half the reason still unexplored, doesn't it?"

Narcissa opened her eyes and frowned at him. "I do not understand you, Harry."

"I also did it because I value Lucius as a person," said Harry. "And I want to set him free of slavery as I would want to set a magical creature Voldemort had enslaved free. And I never wish my heart to become hardened to sacrifices, resigned to necessity as the best course of judging a war. Sometimes, yes, I have absolutely no choice, as happened the night that I went to Cornwall. But even there, I acted as necessary to _save_ lives, not to kill those who opposed me. I will take other chances for as long as I can, Narcissa. When I think I have no choices left, then I will strike quickly and hard, yes."

"You cannot live like that," said Narcissa, frowning more deeply. She was sure that Harry understood this already. He had had numerous examples proving the truth, in any case. "You will have to destroy those who face you. Voldemort will have an intolerable advantage against you otherwise."

"And if I do that _all the time_, then Voldemort will have won," Harry countered calmly. "I should simply kill myself when the war is won, because I will have nothing left to live for. The part of me that values freedom and not mechanical duty is the part that loves Draco, the part that chose the _vates_ path. I will not endanger that part of me—"

"Though the struggle to keep it safe will endanger others?" Narcissa challenged. She could not believe what she was hearing. Harry was often careless with his own safety, rarely with others'.

Harry shook his head. "I do not think it will, Narcissa. Where it might, then yes, I will kill first and ask questions later. But most of the time, it won't. And I will not kill simply as a _precaution_, for fear of what _might_ happen. That way lies the Ministry's slippery slope, Juniper's paranoia."

Narcissa wondered if the difference between Harry and other war leaders she had heard of came down to something as simple as age, or Declared allegiance, or the fact that Harry was a _vates_. Regardless of any of that, she had never heard of a path similar to the one he now proposed. One grew hardened by war and did what had to be done. She was not sure that Harry's way, remaining open to the world and refusing to grow jaded, would work.

But then, Harry _did_ do what had to be done, she thought. It was simply that those duties encompassed more than the traditional hard duties of a war leader. How difficult was it really, after all, to make a decision on the battlefield for which your people would applaud you later? Not as difficult as witnessing pain, or killing people on your own side swiftly to prevent their torture, or burying the dead.

She inclined her head, slowly, still unsure, but feeling more confident than she had been in some time about the way Harry was managing this war, and particularly that aspect of it that concerned her husband. "Thank you for explaining to me, Harry."

Harry caught her hand, kissed the back of it, and then turned and strode from the room, leaving Narcissa alone. She walked thoughtfully to the window and stared out of it. A few people were coming up the Hogsmeade road, surrounded by an escort of foreign Aurors, probably to seek refuge in Hogwarts.

_And that would be impossible, too, if we really were living in some stories out of the history-tales. Most leaders would turn away people who can't contribute to the defense of the strongholds. Harry does not._

Narcissa clenched her hands on the windowsill and gave a firm nod. She knew that Harry had stern, clear-eyed people at his back—herself among them—who would protect him if it turned out that his decisions left something to be desired. In the meantime, they might as well follow his path and see if it worked.

_We can turn him back if it does not. Most of the time, Harry listens to other people._

SSSSSSSSSSSS

"Sir?" Xavier's voice came out of the phoenix song spell on Harry's left wrist, distracting him from a daily tour of the wards. He halted and cocked his head, wondering if something had gone wrong near the safehouses that the Cercle Familial had been split to guard. Xavier had been a target once before, the night that Voldemort arranged the trap with Hawthorn in her wolf shape, so it was only natural the Death Eaters might seek him out again.

"Yes?" he asked.

"We have a family recently arrived in Britain from Ireland, who wish to seek shelter in Hogwarts," Xavier said. "I have escorted them to Hogwarts with help from a few of my siblings. May we approach?"

"Of course. Only give me time to inform the Headmistress, and I'll come out and meet them myself." Harry had heard little from Ireland, where things were, as far as he knew, tense and quiet, most of the wizarding families looking to Cupressus Apollonis and his Ministry allegiance. These refugees might have valuable information.

He told McGonagall new refugees were approaching and to drop the wards, and then hurried to the entrance hall doors. Halfway there, he found himself shadowed, and checked a sigh when he realized his shadows were Owen and Bill. Well, they could come if they _must._ Harry thought the protection less important on Hogwarts's grounds than it was when there was a known enemy outside.

He stepped onto the road, and found Xavier and his companions already close. Both the women following him looked more Veela than he did, with long silver hair and a graceful, swinging stride that made it seem as if they would break into a dance at any moment. Harry might have been puzzled by Xavier calling them his "siblings," but Xavier had explained that it was one way the wizards and witches in Cercle Familial traditionally referred to each other, as most Veela could make a claim to be related to each other in a way that most humans could not.

The family they escorted was small, a dark-haired woman with a pinched and silent face, a man who walked in her shadow, and three children, all of whom looked to be between the ages of five and eight. Harry wondered what their story was. The look on the woman's face said it was nothing good, and the way that the man shivered and ducked behind his wife promised nothing better.

It was the children who concerned him most, though. Two of them were frightened, but otherwise normal. The one who walked in front, bent as if against a strong wind, was a boy, and Harry saw that he had probably misjudged his age; he was nearly old enough to start at Hogwarts, it seemed. He kept shivering, and Harry wondered if they had encountered the new magic Voldemort had been so excited about when he killed Adalrico.

A stab of grief tried to overcome him. Harry reminded himself that the problems of the dead came secondary to the problems of the living, and stepped forward, spreading his hands in as non-threatening a manner as possible.

The woman saw him and halted, which forced the halt of the man and the two younger children. The boy in front kept walking, as though he noticed nothing but the path his eyes were focused on. Harry winced. _Yes, something traumatic happened to him, and not long ago._

"Harry," said Owen sharply. "They've been through Dark magic."

"That's obvious. Hush," Harry said. He didn't want the boy's first impression of Hogwarts to be as threatening as whatever his family had fled from. He took a step forward and half-crouched, so that he was at the walking boy's eye-level. "Hello. What's your name?"

The boy glanced up at him, but didn't stop walking, his legs rising and falling like an automaton's. His face was set in a picture of absolute misery, and it looked as though he would crash right into Harry rather than stop.

"You'll be safe in a few moments," Harry murmured. "First, though, can you tell me your name?" The boy was a few feet from him now, and hadn't paused.

The boy opened his mouth, and stopped, struggling to speak. Harry moved a step nearer, not wanting to miss whatever whisper might emerge.

He heard a wordless roar behind him, and then a body crashed into his, bearing him out of the way just as the boy exploded.

Harry heard the sound of flesh falling and pattering around him, the thicker sound of blood, the screams of shock and panic and rage. He rolled, caught, breathless, beneath Owen, and not able to see what had happened.

"Is Bill all right?" he asked, when he could muster the breath to talk. He tried to sit up, only to have Owen push him flat again and keep him there. Owen was a year older than he was, and far stronger. Harry frowned up at him, and received a scowl so dark back that he looked away.

"It was a trap," Owen whispered. "He was full of _Incrementum_ spores, but more virulent than any I've ever seen before."

"What happened to Bill?" Harry reiterated.

"He's fine," said Owen, and glanced over his shoulder, then nodded once. "Yes. The spores were likely meant for you, and if they don't attach to the living flesh they're attuned to in the first few seconds, they die. But they would have attached to you, with you standing that close." Finally, he sat up and let Harry roll over and look at what had happened, though he kept one arm in front of Harry's chest.

The ground was red and black with gore. Harry swallowed the temptation to be sick, since, after all, the boy was dead, and he had to worry about the living, Bill and the boy's family. Bill stood just beyond the gore, his wand leveled at something on the ground next to his feet and his eyes blazing. A diamond glow surrounded the fang earring in his right ear.

Harry gazed at the spores in front of Bill, eyes narrowed. They were larger than the Black Plague spores Adalrico had created, and looked more dangerous. They were enormous puffballs, red as if flushed with blood.

"What do they do?" he asked Owen.

"_Incrementum?_" Owen shifted to stay in front of Harry when he tried to move. "Stay here for now, my L—_vates_. They're Dark magic. We learned about them in Durmstrang. They're meant to multiply fast, so fast that they infest a body and take control of it away from the wizard. A modified version of possession; after they take over, the body belongs to the wizard or witch who sent the spores. Usually, they'll use the victim until he's full to bursting with the next generation of spores, then tune them and send him after someone else." Owen shook his head. "Those spores were tuned to you. Before that, they must have been tuned to the boy."

"So this is Voldemort's work?" Harry supposed he might have turned to that tactic—he did want Harry on his side if he could get him, after all—but it seemed strange that he'd risk the destruction of Harry's body at a further point in time.

"I doubt he would have the knowledge to make them work to their full potential," said Owen darkly, scowling at the puffballs, and blocking another attempt Harry made to move forward. "They require both powerful magic _and_ specialized knowledge, which is one reason they aren't used often. They're part of the branch of magic associated with reproduction, and fertility."

And, like that, Harry knew who must have sent the boy.

"Monika," he breathed.

Owen gave him a confused look. Harry shook his head, and stood. "The Dark Lady of Austria," he explained shortly. "She breeds magical creatures. Something like the _Incrementum _spores would be easy for her." Shaking his head again, he turned to the family who huddled between the three French wizards, who had all taken out their wands. "And she would be cruel enough to stuff a child with them and send him to explode on me if she could. She wouldn't care."

Finally, finally Owen let him move forward. Harry touched his shoulder in passing, and squeezed hard. "Thank you," he whispered.

Owen nodded slightly, and Harry stepped forward to face the boy's family. The man had backed away, his mouth working wordlessly—at least, he'd backed away as far as he could with Xavier's wand pressed between his shoulder blades. The woman had enfolded her two younger children in her robes, but the thin line her mouth was pressed into told Harry that she, at least, had known about this.

Harry focused on her. "Why?" he asked quietly.

The woman shook her head. Harry cast a translation spell. He now thought it extremely unlikely that the family had come from Ireland. More likely, Monika had filled the boy with _Incrementum_ spores in Austria, then sent the family to Britain through Ireland so they would attract less attention.

As he thought more about it, Harry decided to change his first question. There was something he wanted to know more.

"I want to know his name," he told the woman.

She couldn't pretend not to understand him now, but she could still refuse to answer, and it seemed that was what she wanted to do. Harry went on staring at her, and let some of his magic rise, until she flinched. Then she answered, reluctantly, "Aaron."

Harry slowly nodded. "And why did you let the Dark Lady fill him with spores?"

As he had hoped, the realization that he already knew they came from Monika was enough to break the woman's courage. She slumped, her body folding inward as if to protect the two children left to her. "We're hers," she whispered. "We owe allegiance to her. We live on land that belongs to her. She was the one who kept us safe from Muggles for years." She lifted her head, as if hoping to find understanding in Harry's eyes. "When she asked us for a favor, such a small favor, in return, how were we supposed to refuse her? She is a Lady."

Harry fought to keep from curling his lip. He didn't expect Aaron's mother to understand his disgust. It was less a disgust at her, anyway, and more at the entire system of Lords and Ladies and Declarations. That it could command mindless obedience, sacrifices, like this, was disgusting. A Light Lord like Dumbledore, a Dark Lady like Monika—what was the difference between them? And ordinary wizards and witches were so ready to roll over and give in because of fear or awe about stronger magic.

_Stronger magic doesn't make someone good, _Harry thought savagely. _It doesn't make someone right. It doesn't make us entitled to anything that anyone else has—including the lives of their children. Lily knew no better than this woman, and Aaron became a victim just like I did._

_I wish that Scrimgeour was still alive, or at least that the Ministry was under the influence of someone more competent. Ordinary wizards and witches do deserve that middle ground that Scrimgeour dreamed of where they can settle their own affairs without influence from posturing people who insist on calling themselves Lords and Ladies. If Juniper would accept help from me, and would actually implement it, I would work to insure that the Ministry was free of both Voldemort and me._

"What did she want?" he asked.

The woman shook her head. "I don't know. To control you, I would assume, my Lord, but I know nothing more. I only know that she put us on a boat for Ireland, and we were to pretend that we had always been there, with the aid of Memory Charms."

Harry nodded shortly. "And what will she do to you, when she finds out that this trap failed?"

The woman's wide eyes were answer enough.

"If you will give me your oath that you intend to harm neither me nor anyone else here," Harry said, "I will give you shelter in Hogwarts. I cannot guarantee that you will be safe from Monika forever; this attack proves that her arm is long. But you can have a place here."

Tears filled the woman's eyes, and Owen gripped Harry's shoulder and shook it lightly. "Are you _mad_?"

"No," Harry said, turning to face him. "What else would you suggest I do, Owen? Cast them out? They have no relatives here, no friends. And I hardly expect Monika to be friendly to them when she realizes what happened."

"They would not be safe inside the castle," Owen said. "You have no idea who will wish to harm them when word gets out, Harry."

"Then I will send them to a safehouse," Harry said stubbornly. "They should not suffer for Monika's paranoia."

"If you _must_." But Owen looked deeply unhappy about it.

Harry turned to make the arrangements, anger boiling in him all the while. That this could have _happened_—that Monika could get around the Pact by sending servants into Britain, while staying physically out of the country herself—infuriated him.

And so he had another message to send when this was done.

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

He had no winds, as Kanerva did, to summon the Lords and Ladies of the Pact. He was not sure they would come even if called, should their youngest member be the one doing the shouting. Besides, he didn't know if he needed or wanted an audience.

In the end, therefore, he sat before the fire of the Slytherin common room, and called on Monika alone.

He made himself remember every detail of the clearing where he had seen her when Kanerva's call went out, the strange creatures grazing, the heavily warded cottage, the dip and rise of the land. He envisioned it in his mind, until the image wavered between him and the rest of the room. He had no fear of being disturbed when he opened his eyes and found himself gazing at it. The rest of the Slytherins were staying away from him for right now, since they'd felt the intense shimmer and waver of magic around him. And Owen, Bill, and Xavier and his sisters had kept silent for the moment about what had happened on the path, since Harry had enjoined them to.

He had not done this before. That should not, theoretically, matter. Once his magic knew what he wanted, Harry trusted it to establish the connection. He would not have if he had not seen Monika and her home before, or if his rage were not so deep, a clear sea studded with dark green flowers, but both were true.

"Monika."

He felt his voice shudder out of him and into the image, which rippled in response, and then became like one of Kanerva's wind-windows, picturing what was really there. Monika stood near one of the grazing creatures, caressing the one curled around her wrist, which looked to be a cross between bird and snake. She looked up with faintly narrowed eyes, and locked her gaze on Harry.

"I see Aaron failed," she murmured. Since Harry still had the translation charm in effect, he could understand.

"He did," said Harry. His voice deepened and cooled even further. At least she had not made a joke of it. He might have attacked if she had. "Might I inquire why you sent him and his family after me?"

Monika whispered to the creature around her wrist, and then tossed it up. Green-golden wings flared around a frilled face filled with jagged teeth, a creature out of nightmare. Harry watched it soar up and disappear.

"Part of it is the fact that you might free my children when you are done with your _vates_ work in Britain," said Monika. "I have already had to tighten my webs. But not all of it. Have you yet realized that Lord Riddle has come back to full power?" Her eyes narrowed again, locked on him.

"He cannot have," said Harry. "I cut a hole in his magical core with the Fisher King Curse. I am the only one who can heal it."

"Do not ask me of the method." Monika folded her arms. "But the truth is that he has returned. We felt the flag of his power unfolding over Britain this morning." She cocked her head. "Such power is more than attractive, and if the prophecy can be believed, unclear thing though it is, you will be the one to win against him, even as strong as he is. You are his magical heir. His power will pass to you on the moment of his death."

"How did you know the prophecy?" Harry demanded.

Monika's smile deepened, but she didn't reply.

"And so you sought to control me and the magic that I will inherit," Harry finished flatly.

"Yes." Monika did not sound at all sorry for it. Harry told himself that he had known she wouldn't be. It didn't stop his impulse to strike her dead where she stood. "I would be more than safe from your webs. I would be the most powerful witch in the world with even a third of that power, which is probably all that the spores could manage to transfer to me. Lord Riddle is the strongest Lord in the world."

Harry had not known that, but it made sense. If nothing else, Voldemort's _absorbere_ ability, and his reckless use of it, would guarantee that.

"I want your word you will not interfere in Britain again," he said.

Monika laughed softly. "Why in the world would I give you that? And how can you trust me if I do? You know that the Pact will not consider this to be a violation of my word to stay out of your country, but if you come to Austria, I will be justified in defending my home ground."

Harry stood. "I do not have to physically come to Austria."

He drew on his magic, the deep rage he had felt when his parents were arrested, and some—a tiny bit—of the darkness that lay pooled in him, whining anxiously for an outlet. The air in front of him chilled, and came together in the shape of a serpent. Harry caressed its white scales, outlined with gold, and saw the unwillingly fascinated expression on Monika's face.

"This creature shall not be subject to your magic," Harry told her, "since it did not come from sexual reproduction. And I will direct it to travel to Austria. Sooner or later, it will find you, and if you have interfered in Britain again, it will kill you. Slowly." He would fill its fangs before it left. Many poison would do, he thought. He wondered if Monika would enjoy being blind as Voldemort was. "You cannot affect it, slow it down, or stop it, and its vengeance will endure even if I have died or fallen under your control in the meantime. I will give it instructions in Parseltongue not to obey me after my initial commands." He bent his head close to the snake and did just that. The serpent blinked gold-fringed eyes, then curled around his wrist and extended its tongue, tasting the source of Monika's magic so that it would know where to go when it began its journey.

"No one would let a creature so wonderful go," Monika said softly.

"I just did," Harry assured her.

Monika studied him a moment longer, then bowed. "Perhaps I shall not find some way out of it," she said. "Until then, you have my word that I will not interfere in your country. _Vates._" She paused. "But even if I do not, others will come for your magic, standing ready to reap it when Lord Riddle falls. It is too tempting, and the idea that an undeclared adolescent should control it is not to be borne."

She clapped her hands, and Harry's window darkened and drifted apart. Harry sat back for a moment and closed his eyes. Both the contact and creating the serpent had taken a toll on his magic.

"Harry?"

Harry stirred himself reluctantly and sat up. Draco was coming down the stairs, and unlike his emotions over the death of his parents or the darkness inside himself, Harry knew this was not a secret that could be hidden.

"I have something to tell you, Draco."


	32. Nor Iron Bars a Cage

**WARNING WARNING WARNING (again): Torture, murder, gore, and RAPE in the second scene. This one is even nastier, in its own way, than chapter twenty-two. Please skip the scene if you need to.**

The chapter's title comes from Richard Lovelace's "To Althea, From Prison": "Stone walls do not a prison make,/ Nor iron bars a cage."

**Chapter Twenty-Four: Nor Iron Bars a Cage**

Harry swallowed, and slowly inclined his head. "I understand," he said, not looking at Jing-Xi. What else could he say? This was not her fault. She was obeying laws set up long before she was born.

"I am sorry, Harry," Jing-Xi said quietly. "And I agree that it is an incidence of hypocrisy. But the Lords and Ladies are wary of what could happen if they did grant permission for others of the Pact to send small creatures—spies, and servants such as Monika has—into the country to help you. Some of them would help you. Some of them would try to help you only to gain the power you stand to inherit when Tom falls. And some of them would help Voldemort, because they would rather deal with a Dark Lord, even the most powerful Dark Lord in history, than an undeclared _vates_ whose actions they still cannot determine." She shook her head, looking weary. "The noninterference rule of the Pact states that they will not allow something to occur merely because it did once already. Thus they will shun Monika, but she will not be punished. They almost expected this of her."

Harry sighed. He had hoped for more help once the Lords and Ladies heard Voldemort was returned to full power, but it seemed that was not to be. "I understand," he repeated. _What else can I say?_

Jing-Xi reached out and cupped her hand beneath his chin, lifting his face, smiling warmly. Harry felt her magic slide over his like the flood of sunlit water it often resembled. "I am here, Harry," she said. "And I can help defend your allies, even if I cannot carry my strength into offensive battle. Kanerva can do the same. Depend on us. Thomas and I think we may yet find a way around the Unassailable Curse on the Sword of Gryffindor."

Harry's tongue burned with the longing to say that they wouldn't, because the prophecy claimed they could not, but then he realized whom he sounded like. _Dumbledore and Lily relied on prophecies to the exclusion of all else, including human kindness and compassion. I will not do that, not let my own stubbornness shut off avenues of hope._

"Thank you, my Lady," he said instead, and kissed the back of her hand, and retreated from the room.

Owen met him there, face grim and tired. Harry braced himself for news of an attack on a safehouse, but what Owen had to say was different in degree, if not in kind.

"Someone tried to attack Aaron's family," he said bluntly.

"Are they hurt?" Harry demanded at once, turning towards the hospital wing. It was where he had sheltered Aaron's parents and siblings, behind strong but subtle wards that would only flare if someone carried actual physical violence to them.

Owen shook his head and sped up so that he matched Harry stride for stride. Harry was aware of another sworn companion appearing close to his shoulder. Bill, from the sound of the footsteps—longer legs, since he was taller than Charlie. "Those wards made sure of that. But it's as I suspected, Harry. Other people don't want them here, not after hearing what they did to you."

"That wasn't them," Harry muttered in disgust. "That was Monika. And what do others think _they_ would have done, put in Aaron's mother's place?"

"Resisted," said Owen. "Besides, Harry, most people are not as rational as you are. They know that you were attacked. And the attackers are sheltering in Hogwarts. Some people think you are blind to the danger, others that you are fanatically compassionate even if that compassion could doom you."

"And either is a weakness," Harry finished, his voice clipped.

Owen paused, then nodded reluctantly.

"Compassion is much more rarely a weakness than they think it is," Harry muttered. "But, well. Thomas has finished fortifying a safehouse in London. I'll move them there tonight." He looked at Owen out of the corner of his eye. "Can I trust you to escort them the distance?"

Owen shook his head. "I do not want to be away from you for that length of time," he said calmly. "I would not hurt them, because you asked me not to, but neither will I leave your side. The first responsibility of a sworn companion is to his Lord or Lady, above family, above victims, above pride."

_I suppose if he wouldn't abandon me for Medusa and Eos, or his brother, I can hardly ask him to do that for strangers, _Harry decided. "Very well. I'll send Tonks." The former Auror had taken over dueling classes, but there were other teachers—Moody and Peter among them—and missing one night, or being reassigned to a different teacher, would not hurt her students.

They had reached the doors of the hospital wing by then, and Harry cautiously pushed them open. He found Madam Pomfrey standing next to the bed that cradled Aaron's mother—and, currently, her two younger children, who had their faces buried in her robe—trying to reason with her through both her sobbing and the translation charm. The matron glanced up, and Harry didn't miss the flash of relief on her face when she saw him, even though she tried to temper it.

"Harry," she murmured. "There was an attack, but it didn't even scorch the wards. I'm trying to make sure it didn't touch her children, who were nearer the edge of the wards than she was, but I can't get through to her."

Harry nodded, and Madam Pomfrey moved aside. Harry crouched down in front of Aaron's mother and half-closed his eyes. He had learned her name, though so quickly it took him a moment to remember it—

"Liane," he said quietly.

She looked up at him slowly, eyes still overflowing with tears of exhaustion and fear. Harry squeezed her wrist gently, and she shuddered, her mind returning from wherever she'd cast it.

"I am sorry," she said. "But I woke, and there was a dark figure, much like the servant of the Lady that fetched me, and—" She shut her eyes and her lips, seeming to resist saying anything further. Harry wondered if it was pride that kept her silent, or unwillingness to reveal too much about the circumstances surrounding Aaron's death.

"You have nothing to be sorry for," he said. He could have blamed her, but what would words of blame do? Voldemort was back in the world. Harry had no wish to make the lots of other people, or his own, harder. "It's all right, Liane. I promise. It will be all right. We'll move you to a safehouse where other people don't know who you are or what happened."

"So no one will hate us?" Liane whispered.

Harry shook his head. "Not unless you do something to make them hate you."

A faint half-smile, the first he'd won out of her, was his answer for that. "Thank you," she said. "I think I would like to sleep now." She gathered one child, the younger one, closer to her, and handed the other over to her husband, who retreated into the next bed with dark, watchful eyes fastened on Harry's face. A moment later, if they weren't asleep, they were at least still.

Harry sighed, and then turned and carefully studied the air in front of the wards. He hoped that he'd be able to find who had done this, at least if their magic was familiar to him. There were so many people in Hogwarts now, and coming in and out through the wards as they arrived for dueling training or refuge, that the chances of it being someone he knew were much smaller than before.

As it turned out, he did know the signature, and he stiffened in shock.

"Harry?" Owen hovered in front of him. "What is it?"

"Nothing," Harry muttered. "Not right now, anyway. I'll go find Tonks, and talk to her about escorting Liane and her family to the safehouse in London."

He carefully avoided Owen's eyes as he went down the hall. _Why in the world did Michael attack them?_

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Draco had become very practiced at telling when Harry was awake and only pretending to be asleep. Of necessity, Harry had in turn become even better at feigning slumber. He lay with his head pillowed on Draco's shoulder and his breathing even and completely relaxed until he _knew_ from the soft snores next to him that Draco was deeply asleep. Then he opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling of the four-poster.

He'd found Tonks and given her instructions about Liane's family; she'd been glad to accept the assignment. But he hadn't been able to shake Owen off so that he could find Michael and talk to him alone. He had no idea what the boy thought he was doing. Some warped demonstration of loyalty? Choosing random targets for his anger? Something even stranger than that?

_I will have to talk to him. Just another problem in a slew of them, a sea of them._

The image of the sea called to mind the shifting, variegated light and darkness of the North Sea on the day he and Connor had buried their parents. Harry decided to use the image to lull himself to sleep if he could. He imagined the rising and falling waves, the quietude behind them, the movement that was a lot like the movement of Draco's chest beneath his ear.

And then the darkness parted.

Harry found himself gazing at an image of Malfoy Manor, which made him frown and cock his head. _Why am I seeing this? It's certainly not something that I normally picture when I close my eyes, or that I would expect to see on the verge of falling asleep. Spillover from Draco's dreams, perhaps?_

He was trying to figure out if he was in the right frame of mind to share Draco's dreams—it didn't seem likely, but stranger things had happened to him in his life, Merlin knew—when pain took him by the throat.

He recognized the sensation almost at once. Voldemort had broken through the Occlumency and the defensive Legilimency Harry had put up around the scar connection. He paralyzed Harry's body in the midst of agony so complete that Harry almost forgot he had limbs.

Darkness curled and lapped around Harry like the shifting coils of some great serpent, and then surged forward around him to fall on the still vision of Malfoy Manor. By the nearly full moon in the sky overhead, Harry had no doubt that he was seeing it as it was this night.

_If I'm seeing it as it is at all, _he tried to remind himself. _This could be a trick, a false vision, a deception—_

_Hush, my heir, _Voldemort's voice said, full of laughter and hatred. _I am showing you the truth, because I wish you to watch them die._

And then Voldemort was there, walking towards the Manor under the moonlight, and Harry was voiceless and could not scream. Voldemort lifted one pale, gleaming hand. The snake wound around his waist saw for him, and in any case, he could feel the glinting pewter edge of the Manor's changed wards.

He opened up the gullet of his _absorbere_ gift.

Harry felt him drink the Manor's wards, absorbing the magic of the shell planted in the walls as easily as if it were a Muggleborn child's. Alarms tried to cry, but they fell silent too quickly. Voldemort turned and looked over his shoulder and nodded, and three people came forth from behind him. One was Lucius, one was Hawthorn, and one was the shifting shape of Sylvan and Oaken Yaxley.

"I have told you what to do," he said. "Do it."

The three Death Eaters bowed, only one of them smoothly, and then strode past him and towards the house.

Harry was fighting furiously to wake up, and every time he lashed up he was drowned by the sheer strength of Voldemort's will, soothing him the way that someone might soothe a cantankerous pet. _You cannot wake up, _Voldemort told him. _You cannot stop this. You can only watch. I shall take from you everything you have loved, I told you that, and I meant it. Rejoice, for some of your loved ones shall escape me this night. I shall take only two._

Harry imagined Ignifer and Honoria dying under Lucius's and Hawthorn's wands, and struggled harder.

_Hush, Harry. If you burst your heart, then what shall the war effort and the prophecy do? What shall I do, without my beloved son?_

The vision moved, and Harry accompanied Lucius and Hawthorn into the hallways, saw them meet the first resistance, and watched them lift their wands.

And he understood, then. Voldemort had sent them to maim, not to kill. Again and again Lucius intoned curses that removed limbs, and Hawthorn chanted blood spells that would turn the most basic of bodily functions on her victims, but leave them alive to suffer. There was a shine like tears in her eyes. Harry had no idea if it was truly that, however, or simply the reflected light of the moon on the amber of her gaze, since she was so close to becoming a werewolf.

Ignifer and Honoria came into their way, but Lucius and Hawthorn avoided them both, only raising shields against Ignifer's fire. Ignifer soon enough left them, when she saw she could do no good, and concentrated on defending the others from the wrath of the two Death Eaters—when she could. It was not often she could find someone who was not already wounded.

Harry was at a loss for a moment, and almost forgot to fight. If not Ignifer and Hawthorn, then who were the two Voldemort meant?

And then the scene shifted, and he saw Sylvan Yaxley entering the room where Medusa sheltered with Eos.

_No!_

Harry lunged against the dark barrier of Voldemort's strength once more, and again was forced down. He tried to break free, to open his eyes so that he might rejoin the waking world and fly to the Manor's defense and theirs, but he could not. He could not even close his eyes and will the vision away.

He had no choice but to watch.

Medusa was awake, holding Eos close to her chest and crouching behind a very powerful Shield Charm. It did her no good. Sylvan softly spoke a spell that Harry had never heard before, his left hand held out and slightly crooked, and Eos flew out of Medusa's arms and into his.

Sylvan stood gazing down at her for a moment. Harry's vision went gray and he felt a warning twinge in his chest as he watched the monster looking at his goddaughter. He _had_ to reach her. He was supposed to protect her. He wanted—

_What you want makes no matter, _Voldemort crooned in his ear. _Watch, Harry, and learn the folly of opposing me._

Sylvan gripped Eos by her legs and stepped back. As she cried, he whirled and slammed her, head-first, against the nearest wall.

Her wailing silenced as her skull smashed open, and Harry couldn't look away from the mixture of blood and brains that slid down the wall. Medusa made a sound like nothing living and tried to attack, but Sylvan had a plan in place for that, too. Harry saw him catch her on a diamond point of light and hold her there, even as his body rippled and wavered and cycled into Oaken.

Oaken had bronze-brown eyes that showed no emotion at all. Harry had no doubt in that moment that he was looking upon Adalrico's killer. His own heart was hot in his mouth, as was the taste of bile and the pain like a branding iron piercing his throat.

"_Diffindo_," Oaken said, and Medusa's robe split open down the middle. The diamond point of light pressed forward at the same moment, and ripped her back open, continuing inward until it rested against one of her internal organs.

Oaken took a step forward, opening his own robes.

_He's going to rape her. He will._

Harry flopped again like a wounded fish, and still he could not move, and still he could not close his eyes, and still he could not stop this. The ruins of Eos's small body still slid down the wall, and still Oaken walked forward until he stood in front of Medusa, gaze uninterested.

He pushed forward, and she screamed.

Harry could remember feeling what he felt then only twice before, once when he watched a boy butchered by werewolves while he was bound to the altar stone in the graveyard at the end of fourth year, and once when he watched Loki, in werewolf form, tear open a door and evade his magic to get to a former Auror Harry was guarding. Every other time, even when he'd had to kill the children in the Life-Web, he'd at least been able to do _something_. He'd saved them, though at the cost of a good part of his honor and his integrity. He had to be able to save Medusa. It was too late for Eos, but—

And he could not move. When Voldemort's magic clamped down around him like the jaws of a werewolf around its prey, he lost even the slight freedom to struggle that he had had so far.

_Do you see? _Voldemort asked, voice stern and proud, as if he were narrating the exploits of a favorite child to a friend. _Each time he rapes her, he pushes her onto the spike behind her. She is impaled from both front and behind. It is almost poetic._

Harry screamed and lunged again. He could hear the ripping of her flesh, and her cries. Then the spike pressed inward enough that she could not scream. Harry knew it had most likely pierced a lung.

_I have to. I promised her. I said I would be Eos's godfather. I promised to protect her. I named her. And she's dead, and Owen's mother is dying in front of me, and I said she would be safe, and she isn't, and I have to—_

There was only one choice, and he knew it.

Even as Medusa expired, even as Oaken exhaled a loud sigh and slumped forward over her dying body, Harry reached out and opened the first of the many gates that kept the dark part of him which enjoyed domination locked up.

He heard its eager whining, and then it slid forward, and then Harry flung all his will to hurt and hate and torture and cause pain against Voldemort.

Even as Voldemort flinched, Harry could hear him laughing.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Draco was already awake, because he had felt the damage to the wards around the Manor, and it had hurt. He had seen the blood pouring from Harry's scar and tried to wake him up, but he couldn't do it. Harry only kept twitching and mumbling and sometimes crying out. Then he'd lost his voice and been unable even to do that. He just uttered little half-choked moans that made Draco frantic with concern for him.

The rational part of his brain urged him to leave Harry and get Snape, who might be able to wake him up. But Draco couldn't bring himself to leave. He just stayed there, Harry's body twitching like a nerve in thrumming flight, and whispered words of love and longing and desire for him to come back.

Later, he would have cause to bless the irrational part of his brain.

Harry abruptly stiffened and fell silent. Even his breathing seemed to stop. Draco had to lower his head to Harry's chest, so that he could hear his heart pounding and reassure himself Harry was still alive.

And then he saw the walls turn to ice, and all the lights in the room went out at once.

Draco did not hesitate. It had been years since Harry was this angry. He didn't care. He recognized the sensations of the fury that had accompanied them when they went together to face the Chamber of Secrets.

This time, though, he didn't have to stand there, a helpless, frozen statue, while Harry faced death and danger without him.

He closed his eyes and jumped, following the old familiar trail of his possession gift into Harry's head, prepared to share his thoughts and the danger—

Save that what he found when he opened his eyes in the mental world was unlike anything he'd seen before.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry knew a distance separated him from Voldemort, even now. The scar connection was a tunnel flowing with magic, or led into the tunnel flowing with magic, and Voldemort had littered it with traps to prevent Harry from having easy access to his mind.

But that did not matter.

His rage surged beneath him, released from its confinement, a deep black horse that bore Harry on racing legs along the path of traps. Voldemort's Legilimency snapped at him, and Harry answered with crushing force of his own, and Voldemort's Legilimency lay down and died. Mirrors tried to baffle and confuse him, but Harry could not see anything in them darker than his own soul. His own resemblance to Voldemort was dangled before him as a bait to pity. Harry laughed it off.

_He is like me? Then it will make it all the easier for me to destroy him._

Harry leaped the last distance, and became aware for the first time of someone racing beside him. When he turned his head, he was stunned to see Draco there, clinging to a second black horse that was a representation, Harry supposed, of the possession gift that had let him ride the trailing edge of Harry's thoughts.

"What are you doing here?" Harry snapped.

"Learning, apparently." Draco leaned forward to clutch the neck of his horse. "I never knew you had such darkness inside you."

Harry snarled. He'd told Draco about the attack from Aaron, but not about the darkness in its pool, thinking they'd have plenty of time for that conversation. "Then you should know to fear me now, and _go back._"

Draco threw his head back and laughed. Harry just stared at him until he finished, and shook his head. "Harry, don't you understand? I _admire_ the darkness in you. I wish you used it more often. Why wouldn't I? I'm a Dark wizard."

Harry didn't have the time to answer, and he certainly didn't have the time to examine his own mind, identify the hooks by which Draco had latched on, and cut him loose. They were almost upon Voldemort. Harry could feel his power building, getting ready to slam into the snake-faced bastard.

"Hang on, then," he said, and the full force of his hatred went home.

Harry had never wanted to hurt someone so much in his life. Fudge, Umbridge, Lily, Juniper when he had taken Snape, Dumbledore, all of those were pale shadows before this, his true enemy. He summoned everything black and dangerous from within himself, backed it with the will that let him remain _vates_, and pushed it into Voldemort's head through the scar connection.

At the same time, he drew their conjoined magic tightly to him through the tunnel in which the bird flew, and whipped it around and around his body like thread coiling on a spindle, trying to keep Voldemort from using it to defend himself.

The Dark Lord repelled the first onslaught, of course. He was stronger than Harry was, the most powerful wizard in the world. He seemed a little shaken, which Harry told himself was the best he could hope for.

And then he opened his _absorbere_ gift again, and began to suck magic from the wounded inhabitants of the safehouse.

Harry knew he could hurl himself at that gullet and accomplish nothing except to get both him and Draco drowned and drained, made Squibs. He circled away, therefore, kicking the black horse beneath him until they were racing through what looked like a high and starry sky, and then came in from behind.

This time, his rage was deep, and quiet, and he concentrated all his will on the one overwhelming thing he wanted from Voldemort, as he had wanted it of Fenrir Greyback. _Vanish. Disappear. I want you to cease existing. _Now.

The boundaries of Voldemort's body and existence trembled. Harry snapped at them, tore at them, and went howling on. His progress had slowed now, and the black horse beneath him kicked, hooves scrabbling for purchase as though in mud, with Draco silent beside him. But he had to make it forward, and he would make Voldemort vanish if it was the last thing he did.

_Go. Cease existing. Hear me. Vanish. _Now.

He wanted to control Voldemort, dominate him, separate one atom of his body from another. He could feel them parting, if he concentrated. He shoved, and more and more magic came howling up from within him, as he drew on Voldemort's own power to make him do what Harry wished.

His throat drew tight. His heart beat in his ears like wine. He labored, muscles straining like those of a draft horse, and still he threw himself into the push again, and again, and still again.

_Collapse. Die. Fold inward. I command it. _Now.

And Voldemort was melting beneath him, rolling away, collapsing like a pile of snow on a high summer day. Harry opened his mouth in a thin, bird-pitched screech of triumph—

And then he realized that Voldemort had only Apparated, and not melted away at all. Harry hissed in frustration, and his magic coiled around him like a series of scorpions, tails lashing, all angry, all wanting to kill something.

His magic and his temper tumbled around him, and the darkness, loosed from its cage, roared and panted in gladness.

And Harry could not control it, could not draw it back.

He felt the rush gathering itself beneath him, the black horse solidifying, drawing greedily on the strength he'd invoked. It wanted to go further, unfold and explode across the world, hunt down every Death Eater and every Ministry official who believed in Juniper's nonsense and kill them all.

_No! No, damn it!_

But his own desires were struggling against his own desires. Even though he wanted what he had always told everyone he wanted—the freedom for everyone to make his or her own decisions, and the ability to think through their actions without fear—he also wanted to see a world where the webs were unraveled already and he had accomplished everything he wanted to accomplish.

And now the world lay flat and gleaming beneath him, his power rearing like a wave, like a herd of horses of the night wind galloping past the moon. No one could oppose him, not if he chose to use what was his, the power of his birthright. He could drink magic as Voldemort could, and from a wider variety of sources, and then he would locate the Horcruxes by ripping their places from Voldemort's mind, and convince Death Eaters to die as willing sacrifices, and end this once and for all.

The vision tempted him. He wavered.

And one moment of wavering in this dark world of power, where he hovered on the edge of Lordship, was eternity.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Draco did not at first understand what was happening, and then he did. He felt a sting of mild annoyance.

_All of this would have been much easier if Harry had just told me he harbored such darkness from the beginning._

But he could direct the dark horse he rode, at least while Harry wasn't actually galloping away with him, and he directed it around now in a large circle until he was in front of Harry. He reached out, and put his hand on his lover's shoulder.

Harry's green eyes rose to meet his, seething with power. Draco caught his breath, and trembled with his own weakness. Part of him wanted to tell Harry to go on and ravage the world, end the war, do whatever was necessary to keep that magic burning. Even though he knew Harry would hate it, that part of him didn't care. It was the part that had embraced the Dark with the most dangerous Justification possible, and which rather loved the thought of Harry the Dark Lord. Draco was not of the Light, and never would be, even if he changed his mind about Muggles and Mudbloods. The Dark was far more than a matter of blood.

But because he had no fear of what Harry was, he could guide him back to what he wanted to be.

"Harry," he murmured. "Listen to me." He gestured to the black horses and the starless sky around them, being careful not to loose Harry's gaze as he did so. "What caused all this?"

"I saw them kill Eos Rosier-Henlin by smashing her head open against a wall." Harry's voice was flat. "I saw them rape Medusa even as a spike tore her apart from the inside."

Draco winced, but slowly nodded. "But was this darkness always inside you? Or did it rouse itself only because of those things you saw?"

"Always there," Harry whispered.

"Then you can guide it back to its place," Draco whispered in return. "You aren't caught up in something alien to yourself. This _is_ you, Harry." He spread his arms, and felt the winds of Dark magic travel past him, making him shiver and start and yearn to follow. "You can command it the same way you can command your compassion, and put that aside when necessary. Put this aside, too." He lowered his voice even more and leaned forward. "You could have told me about this. I would hardly have rejected you for it."

Harry frowned. "But you would have insisted that it didn't exist, the same way you would have insisted that I shouldn't grieve for my parents."

_I knew it._ But that was a conversation they would have later, not right now. Draco shook his head. "Not once I saw proof, I wouldn't have. You can trust me more than that, Harry." He made sure to keep his voice reassuring, not accusatory. It was probably the accusations, like the ones he had made after the slaughter in Cornwall, that had made Harry so certain Draco would turn away from his darkness and his emotions over his parents' deaths. "Besides, this doesn't frighten me, or make me despise you."

"How does it make you feel, then?" And the intensity of Harry's gaze, which actually made Draco's face begin to bleed, told Draco how important his answer was.

He answered honestly. "Rather like fucking you, actually."

Harry blinked, and the darkness around them began to falter. Draco could see starlight through the clouds now, and the black horses no longer tossed their heads as if impatient to run away.

Draco nudged his mount closer to Harry's and wrapped his arms around his chest. "Come on," he murmured. "You made Voldemort back off. Come back to yourself, Harry. You'll have other chances to fight him like this." _Merlin, I hope so. _Draco had never been further from afraid in his life. His skin was tingling, and he wished there was some town of wizards associated with Voldemort nearby, so that Harry could smash them into smithereens and relieve some of his frustration. "Come on."

Harry gave one deep shudder, and then the horses dissolved beneath them and Draco was tumbling, with Harry in his arms, down a bleak, featureless pit. He didn't let it bother him, even when the sensation of spinning grew acute. He merely held fast to Harry, and felt Harry finally cling back, with an openness that he hadn't shown in months.

They landed with a bump on something soft, and the darkness tore away, and they were back in their bedroom. And Harry was crying without sound, so that if Draco hadn't been able to see the tears on his face, he would never have known he was crying at all.

"Voldemort is going to take everything I've loved from me," Harry whispered. "One by one. He took Medusa and Eos, and he let Honoria and Ignifer escape, just so he could kill them later. How long before you're dead, Draco? Or Snape? Or Connor, Peter, Henrietta, all the rest—"

"Hush," Draco said, and dragged him closer still. "We will protect ourselves, Harry, and you can help, given that magic of yours. Weep for Medusa and Eos now. We'll plan later."

Harry might have protested, perhaps, if he wasn't so very weary and traumatized. But instead he put his head down and cried, still without a sound, though now and then his shoulders shook.

Draco smoothed his back, and, awful as the deaths had been, and ruined as the wards around Malfoy Manor now were, he found that his major emotion was contentment. He had not known Medusa and Eos Rosier-Henlin, not well. He cared about them mostly for the effect their deaths would have on Harry. What _did_ matter was that Harry had faced the darkness within himself, and he seemed more willing to trust Draco with it now.

_These will be Dark times, _Draco thought, feeling rather like Harry had looked after Lily and James were murdered: intent on fighting anyone who tried to drag Harry away from him. _But I'm a Dark wizard. All the better to flourish in them. _


	33. Swear Not By the Moon

Thank you for the reviews on the last chapter!**  
**

**Warning: Some gore.**

This chapter's title comes, of course, from _Romeo and Juliet_.

**Chapter Twenty-Five: Swear Not By the Moon**

He had not expected that, had Lord Voldemort. He had been sure of himself when he went to Malfoy Manor, but he had not been sure _enough_. He had not expected Harry's return strike to open wounds in his body along every joint, all the places where Harry had tried so hard and so earnestly to part bone from bone and sinew from sinew.

Harry had tried his very best to will him out of existence, and had not been successful. Lord Voldemort knew the reasons he had failed. The Horcruxes bound him here. As long as they existed, then he would exist. If a reflected Killing Curse had not driven him completely away on that dark and bloody night here sixteen years ago, then a simple blast of will, no matter how strong, would not, either.

He took to his throne room, and allowed only Indigena in to see him. She came with her eyes on the floor, as if she could not bear to take in the sight of his wounds. "My Lord?" she asked.

He considered her with the wisdom of snakes, the deep and long-sliding coil of serpents, while he stroked the flesh-snake around his waist. There was warmth brewing in his belly to match the warmth that brewed under the sand in one corner of the burrow. He considered sending her out to make the next strike.

But Indigena was a valuable servant, and with Harry as maddened as he was—but not maddened enough to yield to his hatred, alas and alas and may the darkness cover him—then he might kill her on sight. He would not risk losing her.

"Send Hawthorn to me," he said.

Her words "My Lord," were almost soundless, but he heard them, did Lord Voldemort, and he smiled. He would have known her reason for not answering to him if she had dared.

He would let Hawthorn smell the blood from his wounds before she looked upon him, he decided. That would push her closer to agreeing to what he wanted her to do, and not fighting his pull. Of course, the moon's call, rising full the next night, would in fact do most of the work.

He would keep his word to his heir. He would not kill too many of those Harry had loved, too quickly. But he would kill one or two a night. Surely he could stand that pace.

And there was one Harry had loved, in London.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry let five minutes pass while he cried and Draco comforted him. When they had passed, then he pulled away, shaking his head and ducking from the hand that Draco reached to comfort him. Draco frowned in exasperation.

"Harry, now that you've told me that you recovered from your parents' deaths less well than I thought you had, and now that you've just been through _trauma_, I would hope you'd forgive me for wanting to worry over you." His voice cooled and sharpened to a blade as thin as an icicle.

"I would forgive you, if such a thing needed forgiveness," said Harry, and hoped that his smile reassured Draco. "But I'm not the one who's traumatized." He turned and began to pull his clothes on over his pyjamas.

"Of _course_ you are—"

"It's the victims at Malfoy Manor who know the meaning of trauma," said Harry steadily. He could feel the darkness still spreading icy tendrils through him, less banished forever than dismissed from the forefront of his mind. That was well enough. He would endure that. It was probably what he deserved for not facing it, and not telling Draco about it, in the first place. "I need to check on them, and prepare St. Mungo's to receive them. And then I have to call on Kanerva to return, in whichever way she'll answer me, because I need her winds to guard the safehouses. And then a speech to make. It'll have to be a damn inspiring speech, given what we're facing." He paused, then shook his head, wondering how he could have forgotten this. "No, wait. First, I'll need to tell Owen and Michael about—about Medusa and Eos." His throat closed up. He would have sobbed again if he had the choice. But he didn't.

Draco was not impressed, and Harry knew it both from his voice and the way he let his hand fall on his shoulder, as if could hold Harry in their bedroom by sheer pressure. "You can wait until your tears have dried, Harry. Come on—"

"No. I'm sorry, Draco. I do love you, and you handled yourself magnificently tonight, and without you I would have been lost." Harry caught the hand and squeezed until he almost forced the blood from it. He wanted Draco to understand how much he truly appreciated what he had done, and how little he could do in return. "But there's no one else who can do all this."

"Someone should be able to," Draco muttered, as he reached for his own robes.

Harry gave him a thin, fleeting smile. "Believe me, I'm working on that." _I could have died tonight, or fallen victim to my own darkness, and the war effort would have faltered. It's time that I made people stop relying on me and start relying on my principles._

His scar had bled streaks across his face to join the tears, Harry found when he touched his face. He thought about that for a moment, and then decided to leave them. Hopefully, they would drive home the point of his speech better than any mere words could have, and why it was necessary that people stop thinking he was the last best hope for everything.

The images of Medusa being raped and Eos's shattered skull tried to come back.

Harry forbade them. Give in and start thinking of himself as traumatized by those images, and he would _be_ traumatized by those images. As long as he could continue convincing himself otherwise, then he would.

SSSSSSSSSSS

Indigena had not heard all the plans for tonight's raid before the twins, Lucius, and Hawthorn left. She had only known that they planned to attack Malfoy Manor, and that they were leaving her behind.

She found Oaken washing the caked gore from his hands in a fountain that her Lord had raised from the side of the burrow with his newfound power. When Indigena asked him why, he told her, in a tone that made it clear he found the slaughter boring.

A moment later, he glanced up, and seemed to notice that she was still staring at him. "Cousin, what is it?" he asked, his voice seamed with concern for the first time. "Did I do something wrong? Does our Lord wish me punished?"

"Not at all," Indigena whispered. "No, nothing like that. I shouldn't have been staring, Oaken. Excuse me." She turned and strode rapidly towards her own chamber, her heart pumping with shock and the rose on her left wrist, the rose that had killed Minister Scrimgeour, opening and fluttering convulsively. She placed her other hand over it to shield it from sight, and sat down on the soft, smooth dirt as soon as she was able, closing her eyes.

It was no wonder that her Lord had left her behind. They'd had a—"conversation" was the only word Indigena could find for it, the night after he regained his power. He had asked her what else she would not do for him, besides meaningless torture. She'd told him that she could not be a witness to rape. She found it distasteful, partly because it reminded her of what happened to her under her sister Peridot's magic.

And this was his version of kindness, in sparing her from seeing this sight.

Indigena still could not move against him unless she wanted to wind up a puppet, unable even to refrain from torture or rape herself. But there was a rule—in fact, it was almost an unwritten law—that said Death Eaters could move against other Death Eaters.

She needed to stop Sylvan and Oaken. They did not care about what they did. They had not come to serve her Lord because of honor, but because they knew there would be no place for their kind of magic in a world where Harry ruled. If they stayed in the Dark Lord's service, then rape would be a weapon he regularly used, and one Indigena would be tainted by. _Low magic, filthy magic._

She knew who could destroy Sylvan and Oaken, whose magic was wild enough to do so, who might grow interested and take it up as a sort of mad quest.

She had no idea how to currently contact Evan Rosier, however.

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

Ignifer started when her left wrist chirped, and nodded to Honoria, who was sitting next to a woman and comparing her lost leg to the woman's lost arm, to show that they had someone contacting them at last. They'd fled from Malfoy Manor with everyone they could rescue—pitifully few, only fifteen—and were now crowded into Honoria's house. Honoria had contacted Tybalt Starrise. As soon as he could ready places for everyone, he intended to take them, and contact St. Mungo's.

It wasn't Tybalt's voice that spoke from Ignifer's hand, though, but Harry's. "Ignifer? Are you well?"

"A few wounds, is all," Ignifer replied automatically, before she remembered that Harry shouldn't know about this at all. She frowned. "Harry? Where are you? Did you go to Malfoy Manor?" She hoped not. She had felt the power of Voldemort's magic backing Lucius's attack, and if Harry had arrived, then Voldemort would have remained to fight him.

"No. I saw it in a vision." Harry's voice was more than sane, as if he had a tight grip on his emotions and wanted to keep them from exploding. "I need to know how many of you there are, Ignifer, and what kind of wounds you have."

Wearily, Ignifer pushed her hair out of her eyes and studied the people gathered around them. Everyone was missing at least one arm or leg, even the children. One man had been reduced to nothing more than a torso and head. It had taken several powerful Light spells for forcing life back into the dying to keep him alive. Ignifer forced herself to gaze at him with open eyes, and remember the costs of war. "Fifteen rescues," she said. "So seventeen with me and Honoria, but we don't have more than minor wounds." Honoria flashed her a small smile, confirming that, and Ignifer felt as if someone had reached in and squeezed her heart. "Everyone's missing at least one arm, Harry, and we have one limbless case."

"All right," Harry said calmly. "I'll be firecalling St. Mungo's, and telling them to expect—"

"Tybalt Starrise is already doing that."

There was a momentary silence, and then Harry whispered, "You called him?"

"Of course," said Ignifer, wondering if something was wrong. Had Harry learned something worrying about Tybalt that made him suspect he was a traitor? Had Death Eaters attacked Tybalt's house, too? "Should we not have?"

"No, you should have, that's perfect," said Harry, still whispering. "I simply thought—I'm too used to acting alone, Ignifer, to having to make every single arrangement, and you just reminded me that I don't have to. Not all the time. I just—thank you. _Thank_ you. And thank you for sparing as many lives as you did."

The deep and simple gratitude in his voice stiffened Ignifer's spine. This was what it meant to have a place, a belonging, a home. Harry fought to protect her, both from ordinary danger and from more subtle, insidious ones like the danger of losing her soul to misplaced vengeance, and in return she fought to take care of the more helpless, dependent people around her.

"If you need a lieutenant, Harry, I am always here," she said.

"And me, too," Honoria added behind her.

"Tell Honoria that she's too flighty to be a lieutenant," Harry said, his voice relaxed and almost cheerful, at least compared to the first tone he'd addressed Ignifer with. "I'll be doing other things. For now, Ignifer, these people are your charge. Remain with them, no matter where they go, or at least until the Healers at St. Mungo's are done with them. Then you can bring them back to Hogwarts. We'll be establishing other refuges, ones I hope are safer, but I can't blame them if they never want to live anywhere outside Hogwarts's walls again."

"I will remember that," said Ignifer, feeling pride pour into her like lead that stiffened her spine and her will. "And you may count on me, Harry." She hesitated, then, hating to say what came next, but having to say it. "Harry. You should know that Medusa and Eos—"

"I know," said Harry calmly. "I saw them die. And death came as a mercy, Ignifer, and I have no doubt they perished."

Ignifer decided, carefully, that she would not ask. That too-sane tone was back in Harry's voice again. She did not know what had happened; she had simply noticed that, when they made it out of the safehouse, there was no sign of Medusa or her daughter. "Then we await your next commands, _vates._"

Harry spoke a final soft thanks, and the communication spell cut off just as Honoria's fireplace flared to life. Ignifer turned to face it, her wand held out, but it was only John Smythe-Blyton, Tybalt's partner, one hand held up as if that would actually shield him from a curse should Ignifer decide to cast one.

"St. Mungo's is ready," he said. "There are Healers here, and they'll come through the Floo connection, with your permission, and help you into the hospital."

Ignifer stared. Even granted that this was Tybalt, who had a way of getting things done, she had expected this to take longer. "So quickly?"

John smiled, an expression that warmed his brown eyes from the inside out. "There may possibly have been overuse of Harry's name. And a few delicate reminders that while Harry welcomes allies who use all kinds of magic, the Acting Minister outlawed Dark Arts, which could conceivably include a few of the more important spells that the Healers use."

Ignifer smiled grimly and put her wand away. "That's a cost I can accept."

SSSSSSSSSSS

Harry could not believe how much strength Ignifer's pronouncement had given him. So long as he did not have to do _everything_ by himself, so long as other people would bear part of the burden, then he thought he could get through this.

He stood on the Astronomy Tower, with Bill and Charlie seemingly plastered to his back, and Draco to his side. It was the only place he could be sure Kanerva would hear him, and thus he shouted for her, lofting his voice into the winds. "Kanerva Stormgale! Dark Lady of the winds blowing up and down! I have a challenge for you!" He dearly wished he could simply set her on Voldemort—she would probably relish that, even—but the rules of the Pact said that Jing-Xi and Kanerva could not help him with offensive attacks, only defensive. Thus, he'd put her magic to use protecting the safehouses, if she listened to him.

He received no response for a few minutes. Harry narrowed his eyes slightly. He knew how to manipulate Slytherins, though, and Kanerva was not so very far from that most of the time.

"She's afraid, I suppose," he said, letting disappointment color his voice, and turned back towards the school. "Well. I can't blame her for being so. Now that Voldemort has returned to full power, she may be considering leaving Britain altogether—"

A gust of wind seized him and tried to blow him over the side of the Tower. Harry felt Draco grab for him, but he forced strength into his own limbs and broke the hold. He had to go with this. He had known what calling Kanerva afraid would do, and he was prepared to face it.

He hung in midair, while her face formed out of the wind in front of him, blue eyes keener than usual, black hair streaming behind her. "I am _not_ afraid," she told him, while her fingers flashed like raking talons around him and Harry felt the strum of the nails along his skin.

Harry regarded her calmly, and ignored the terrified shouts from his sworn companions and his partner. "You refused the idea of a challenge," he said, with a slight shrug of his shoulders. "What else could you be?"

She snarled at him, and her nails dug bloody furrows along his back. Harry simply raised an eyebrow. "Voldemort has caused me worse pain than that, this night," he said.

Kanerva was distracted. "What did he do?"

"Killed a baby by smashing her head open, and sent one of his servants to rape her mother," said Harry.

"And why does that hurt you?"

_Sometimes, _Harry thought, while ignoring the ground far beneath him and the way he lazily spun, _I forget that the transition to the Dark snapped her sanity, and she needs the simplest things explained to her. _"Because it does," he said, since he knew that she recognized next to nothing of morality. She had the same savage innocence as any windstorm.

Kanerva's face flicked away and appeared floating at his shoulder. "Very well," she said. "It does. And the challenge?"

"Now that Voldemort has returned to his full power, he can eat wards," Harry told her. "No refuge is safe, unless we conceal it with Unassailable Curses—and most of those we can use, Voldemort could also bypass. He can drink the magic. He can drink wards, and the shells Thomas has made that repel the ward-eating stones. But he cannot drink your winds."

Kanerva formed two hands again and clapped them together with a clicking of nails. Harry watched some drops of his blood fly away from the long fingers and towards the ground. "You are _clever_," she praised. "No, he cannot swallow them all, can he? And if my magic flies from wind to wind—"

"As your consciousness flies," Harry said, remembering their wild journey over the ground and through the various air-currents on the night of the Cornwall attack.

"—Then he cannot swallow it," Kanerva ended dreamily. "Every time he tries, it will flee somewhere else. And the physical winds, those not made of magic but which come to my call because I love them, he cannot drain as he drains magic. They will shield and conceal my spells. A whirlwind of moving wards." She suddenly looked at him with an anxious snap in her blue eyes. "Can the pattern be different for each safehouse? One pattern would be _boring._"

_And unsafe_, Harry thought, _since Voldemort could attack all of them at once if he figured out the key to one. _"They can be," he assured her. "Can you take this challenge?"

"I can," said Kanerva, and started to blow away in her excitement. Harry sucked in his breath as he fell, but a moment later she had snatched him and set him back on the Tower. "We cannot have you falling," she said. "Your ideas are too good. Unless you wish your head smashed open to match the baby's? To show solidarity with her?" She paused anxiously, to await his verdict.

"Having my head whole will be fine," said Harry.

"This is a challenge," Kanerva said contentedly. "Why did you not call on me to attempt it before?" She sounded more curious than chiding.

"Because I did not know that Voldemort would return to full power." Harry rubbed his head, which ached, and then grunted a little as Draco's arms wrapped around him again and stole his breath. "I thought the wards we had would be enough, once we learned to repel the ward-eating stones. Now we need to guard against his _absorbere_ gift, and your winds are the only things that can do that."

Kanerva purred at him, sent a breeze to ruffle his hair, and then vanished. Harry closed his eyes, letting himself enjoy the cool sensations for a moment, and then stood, shaking his head at Draco when he would have restrained him.

"Now to tell Owen and Michael," he said quietly.

SSSSSSSSSS

Owen felt as if a safe, secure castle—Hogwarts, perhaps—had opened a door and left him to stand in chill, constantly blowing air. He bowed his head and fastened his hands over the back of his neck.

Harry had quietly told the story, holding emotion back from his voice. Owen knew why he had done that. He was trying not to intrude on their grief, or make it seem as if he felt more sorrow for their mother's and little sister's deaths than they did.

Unfortunately, it seemed that Michael didn't know that.

"And you don't _care_?" Michael sat in the middle of his bed, staring at Harry in disbelief. "You can speak of these deaths as if they were something you saw at a distance and—speak like _that_?"

They were in the Ravenclaw seventh-year-boys' room, the place where Michael was currently sleeping. Harry had had a terrible time putting both his own sworn companions and Draco outside it. They seemed to assume that Michael and Owen would want to hurt Harry when they heard what had happened.

With Michael, they seemed to be right. He was rising to his feet now, clutching his wand, his eyes wet and red-rimmed. Owen knew he didn't look much better himself. And he didn't _feel_ much better, having to step between his brother and his Lord.

Michael leaned forward, straining to fire a curse around him at Harry. Owen seized his wrist and squeezed it, listening to bones and tendons grinding until Michael uttered a pained, choked sound and released his wand, letting it plummet to the carpet.

"How can you justify this?" he whispered. "Even _you_ shouldn't be able to, Owen. You swore to him, and look what it's done to our family. We entered this damn war, and we've lost our parents, our sister, our honor, our dignity. Rosier-Henlin doesn't even exist as an independent family anymore, only a footnote on the bottom of a list of Harry's allies. He'll get us all killed in the end. You heard what he said about Voldemort. He's killing people who are important to Harry. That's the only reason he killed Mother and Eos. The _only_ reason."

"Listen to me," Owen said quietly, bending his head and putting his lips near his brother's ear. "Every loss we've sustained has been an honorable one. Eos is the only member of our family who died without conscious choice. Mother knew she was in danger, no matter where she went. And Father died on the battlefield, and committed suicide to save us. We'll win no vengeance and no honor by blaming Harry, Michael. Can't you see that's what Voldemort wants you to do?"

Michael closed his eyes and stood still, shaking his head. Then he said, "I should have been there."

"And don't blame yourself, either," said Harry, appearing silently at Owen's side, and nearly startling him enough to make him let go of his brother. "He would want you to do _that_ even more. I don't think you could have saved her. He sent Sylvan and Oaken there with the intention of r-raping your mother and killing Eos." Owen had to admit he was gratified to hear a slight tremble in Harry's voice when he spoke of the deaths, now. He was not entirely unaffected. "You would have become a third victim, or you would have been immobilized and forced to watch."

"You don't know that," Michael whispered. "Just as you don't know that Voldemort only killed them to spite you—"

"Voldemort told me so himself."

Michael tore his body away and tossed his head proudly. "Not everything in this war is about you, Potter," he said, and then turned and stormed out of the room, even if it was his room.

"I'm sorry—" Owen started to say.

Harry's hand covered his mouth. "You're hardly the one who needs to apologize," he murmured. "Perhaps I should have waited longer to give you this news."

"No," said Owen quietly, while the feeling of cold, black wind blowing around him increased. "We needed to know. Michael was especially close to our mother. He'll need time to recover."

"And what about you?" Harry's eyes were steady and compassionate, even as they were also filled with too many shadows of things that no one should ever have to see. "I'll understand if you want to time to recover without fighting at my side, or if you want to be released from your oath."

Owen shook his head. He was—

He was hurt.

But not mortally wounded. Voldemort had intended him to be when he heard this news, and that only made Owen all the more determined to ignore and defeat the snake-faced bastard's intentions for him.

He gripped Harry's arm, and felt his oath scar burn, crackling and humming with energy like a real lightning bolt. "I am in this for life, my lord," he said. "It will take more than this to make me release my oath."

Harry stared at him intently. Owen held back the shiver that wanted to overcome him, and willed Harry to see his soul, his seriousness, his determination. He owed Harry his life for being freed from the torment of Durmstrang, and he owed him his life because he had freely given it over. Not even his mother and sister perishing could induce him to break his oath, even if his twin ran. Owen had a separate existence from his twin, one that combined family honor and personal honor.

At last, Harry appeared to believe him, and nodded. "If you change your mind and wish to be free, you have only to say so," he reminded Owen.

"I know," Owen said, and quashed the temptation to say that he would never wish to be free. Now was not the time for that. Given Harry's loud objections against the idea of someone surrendering his free will entirely, even if he did it of his own free will, it might never be time to say that.

SSSSSSSS

Connor leaned against the doors to the entrance hall, shading his eyes with one hand as he watched his brother walk out on the lawn of Hogwarts. It was mid-morning now, and Harry had called all the reporters who would heed and hear him—mostly ones from the _Daily Prophet_— so that he could say something they needed to hear. Most people had heard something about the attack on Malfoy Manor now, though hardly anyone knew all the details. If nothing else, the arrival of fifteen maimed people in St. Mungo's would have been cause for comment.

Connor knew the details only because Draco had told them to him, with Harry's permission. Harry seemed determined to protect Connor from them. And, Connor thought, with a newfound cynicism, he seemed to believe that Connor shouldn't know he'd witnessed them in a vision.

Harry had come to a halt, his face set and calm. Cameras flashed, and voices called for a statement. Harry inclined his head back to them, but didn't speak until the voices had quieted. Until then, he looked out over their heads and fixed his gaze on the Forbidden Forest.

Connor couldn't look away. He didn't know what else Harry would say besides giving the news of the attack on Malfoy Manor and Voldemort's return to full strength. He only knew that Harry seemed to be gathering his strength from a source deeper than would be needed merely to confess those things.

While he waited, Connor watched the back of his brother's head, and remembered their brief, aborted conversation from half an hour ago.

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

"Make the Switching Potion again."

Harry had glanced up from a map. Connor had sought him out the moment Draco told him the truth, but Harry obviously wasn't expecting him. "What?"

"Voldemort can get through your Legilimency again, can't he, since he sent you that vision?"

Harry glanced down, lips pursed, and nodded.

"Then brew the Switching Potion again, so that I can take on the visions for you." Connor thought the solution simple enough, and didn't understand why Harry was hesitating. "You need to get some unbroken sleep, Harry, and you need to be relieved of the idea that he's doing this just to torment you."

"That's the major reason he's choosing his victims," said Harry, too calmly, rolling the map back up. "I know that. He's told me so himself, many times. And he let Honoria and Ignifer go last night, when he could have easily killed them with Lucius and Hawthorn. Of course, he's also trying to make other people so scared that they never think about helping me again."

Connor snorted. "It's one thing to know that, Harry, and another thing to watch people dying in your head. I want you to brew that Potion so that I can take on the visions. We'll trade off, if you insist, with me dreaming one night and you another. But—"

"No."

Connor reached out, grabbed Harry's shoulders, and shook him hard. Harry let him do it, eyes deep green and stubborn and so _calm_ that Connor thought about slapping him, too. Draco was right. No one who had witnessed what Harry had last night should be acting this way.

"I'm offering to _help_ you, you stubborn prat," Connor said through gritted teeth. "Why is that so hard for you to accept?"

"I don't want anyone else to see that," said Harry. "It's bad enough that I need to see it. _Someone_ needs to bear witness to their deaths, but it doesn't have to be you."

"It doesn't always have to be you, either, you know," Connor pointed out. "That's probably what Voldemort wants, so that he can wear you down further, but why should you oblige him?"

Harry laughed then, and it went too far before it cut off. Harry put a hand on the table in front of him to steady himself, and shook his head. "You think it will calm me to know that you're seeing those things?" he whispered. "I won't subject someone else to torture in my place. I can't spare everyone pain—Voldemort is making me learn that, each and every day, over and over again—but I can spare you this."

"You did it once."

Harry looked up. "When I thought that I could wall Voldemort from my mind forever. This is different. No, Connor."

"If you'd just—"

"The answer will never be yes." Harry's voice ended the argument. He swept up the map and walked out of the room.

Connor hexed the table.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

And now he was standing here, watching his magnificent, stubborn, _stupid_ brother getting ready to make some announcement. He shook his head. "Stupid prat," he muttered.

"On that we agree, Mr. Potter."

Connor staggered in surprise, and looked up in time to see Snape's lips twitch. He considered calling the professor on it, then decided it wouldn't do much good. Instead, he looked back towards Harry and shook his head again. "Why does he have to be so stupid?" he mourned.

"He believes that he must not yield, must not run," Snape murmured, his own gaze fastened on Harry. "On that count, he is correct. But he also believes that allowing someone else to suffer for him, even _willingly_, is wrong. He cannot allow it outside of battle. And that is a weakness that the Dark Lord will exploit against him again, and again, and again. The only way to destroy a Horcrux is for someone else to willingly suffer. I wonder if Harry has reconciled himself to that yet, even as he claims that he has."

Connor wanted to answer, but Harry started speaking then. His voice was quiet, but that didn't seem to matter. Connor guessed he'd bent the air so that it would carry his words again.

"Voldemort attacked Malfoy Manor last night. He sent two of his Death Eaters to maim everyone they could capture, and caused eighteen casualties, of people who died of blood loss before they could be rescued. A third servant of his, Oaken Yaxley—who is joined with his twin Sylvan thanks to blood magic—raped Medusa Rosier-Henlin and destroyed her child Eos in front of her."

A cascade of whispers sprang up, to be silenced by Rita Skeeter's brassy call. Connor had never really learned to like the reporter, even though he knew she was (mostly) on Harry's side. "Why were Madam Rosier-Henlin and her daughter such particular targets, _vates_?"

"Because she was my goddaughter," said Harry, without a flinch in his voice that Connor could hear. "Because I had sworn to protect them. Because Voldemort has sworn to destroy everyone I love."

_Why is he telling them this? _Connor thought frantically. _There are enemies of Harry's who will _run _with this. Juniper not least of them. _By the look on Snape's face when Connor glanced sideways at him, he was thinking much the same thing. Of course, it didn't take a lot to make him scowl.

And then Harry's voice soared, and Connor found out why he'd told them—including his enemies—this.

"Voldemort wishes to make this war about me. To make me fear so much for the lives of those I love that I won't fight him, but will cast myself on the earth and plead for him not to hurt them. To wear me down with visions, and the people around me with terror. To turn Britain against me as an enemy, to make my enemies think they'll be safe if I'm gone, to make Dark wizards forget that he will only want more, and more, if his desire for my life is gratified.

"That must not happen. He may be fighting this war as one of personal enmity, but it must not become that war for other people.

"I urge all around me to remember this: I am only one person. The power of magic I have, others have. The inspiration I can provide, others can look into their hearts and find.

"Ignifer Pemberley and her partner Honoria were the ones who rescued the survivors from Malfoy Manor last night. Freed house elves were the ones who most eloquently managed to speak for themselves in the cause of their freedom. The Midsummer Battle would have been lost without the sacrifices and the struggles of a hundred brave people, including young students. The vampire hive queen fell because three wizards, not one, of Lord-level power opposed her. I could not have done what I have done without Draco Malfoy, my joined partner; Professor Snape, my mentor and father; Connor Potter, my brother; Minerva McGonagall, Headmistress of the school; Peter Pettigrew, who taught hundreds of students last year more about Defense Against the Dark Arts than they've ever known; help from the Ministries of France, Portugal, and Spain; and all the other people who've vowed to study or teach defensive spells, patrol their hometowns, watch for danger, try to persuade reluctant neutrals to our side, and do thousands of other minor tasks that are _no less important_ than what I can provide.

"This is not a war of Lords. I will not let it be. Voldemort wishes to make it so, and that would be enough for me to oppose him, but the root of my opposition lies in the roots of my own principles. What is important is allowing other people the freedom, the chance, the options, to help.

"I am asking for help. I am asking that you not think that all of your problems can be solved if Voldemort gains what he wants, and I am asking that you not hold back on helping because you think your own contribution too small to matter. It will take a hundred shoulders to turn this wheel, a thousand hands to make sure it rolls, a million wills to keep it moving.

"This is not my war. It is ours. I ask for help, and I ask for courage and clear eyes to look past the terror. If I fall, which may happen, this war cannot be lost, must not be lost."

He bowed to the people in front of him, and turned back towards the school. In the silence that followed, Connor felt his heart beating oddly. It was partially the effect of Harry's words, of course, because what he said was perfectly true. They should not succumb to Voldemort's desires solely because he was _Voldemort_, even if they had no other reason.

But he wondered if Harry had even noted the great, glaring hypocrisy at the heart of his speech.

He let Harry know about it the moment he came level with the entrance doors, and thus with Connor and Snape.

"And what if I want to help you, Harry?" he asked, stopping his brother dead. "What if I want to help you turn the wheel by bearing your dreams sometimes? My gifts are limited to direct battle otherwise—my compulsion isn't useful in everyday life. My other great talent is stopping you from being a prat."

Harry hunched his shoulders and might have gone past without replying, but Snape spoke, too, his voice a smooth drawl. "I do believe that you should consider what Mr. Potter says, Harry, or stand convicted of violating your own principles."

Harry swung around to stare at them desperately. Connor could see a new drop of blood starting in his scar, and wondered if he was aware of it. "Not this," Harry said. "Anything else you ask for, Connor, including helping with research on the Horcruxes. But not this."

"Why not?" Connor demanded. He didn't see what the difference was between a sacrifice like this and the others Harry was asking of the British wizarding population.

"Has it occurred to you, Harry," Snape whispered, "that the Horcruxes will require a willing sacrifice, each one?"

"Of course it has!" Harry hissed. "But the visions—they're only meant to torture _me_. He would hunt and kill people I love no matter what, since that's the filthy tactic he's decided on. But no one else _has_ to watch them die."

"And neither do you." Connor stepped forward so fast that Harry couldn't get away, and wrapped his arms around his brother. "At least, not all the time. Let me take the Switching Potion, Harry, and bear the dreams for a few nights. They'll be horrible. I _believe_ that, from what Draco told me about your dream of Medusa and Eos. But I can spare you from them for a short time."

"Connor, stop it, let me go—"

Connor took a deep breath, and forced his arms to release of his brother. "Will you accept that this is something I want to do?" he asked. "If Voldemort strikes you with the visions again, at least?"

"I accept that it's something you want to do," said Harry, eyes gone cool. "That doesn't mean I'll let you do it."

"Harry—" Professor Snape began.

Connor blinked as a dark shape began to come into being at Harry's left side. It looked like a serpent, but before it could fully form, Harry shot out a hand and appeared to strangle it. Then he drew in a deep breath and held it, before blinking hard and forcing an expression of calm on his face.

"I'm tired of watching people I love die," he said, each word accompanied by a twitch and crackle of magic that made Connor fight not to step back. "I'm tired of watching them suffer when I know I can prevent it. And I don't want to watch you suffer, Connor. Is that really so hard to understand?"

Connor chewed his lip. He hadn't thought of it from that perspective, he had to admit. And now that he did, he also had to admit that taking the Switching Potion would be wasted if Harry did nothing but sit up, watch him endure the nightmares, and brood.

_He probably would, too_, he thought, taking one more look at his twin's face.

"I appreciate the offer," Harry continued, more softly but also more intensely now. "I _do_, Connor. That doesn't mean I have to allow it to happen."

Connor glanced to Snape for support, but the professor's face had gone nearly as cool and quiet as Harry's, and he said nothing. In the end, Connor had to nod. "All right. I'm sorry. If you think it would be worse for me to take it and suffer than for you to suffer—"

Harry laughed. Connor didn't like the sound, but he could hardly blame Harry. If the sound was exhausted and enraged, well, Harry had reason. "Of course it would be, Connor," he said, when the laughter ended. "I'm used to enduring pain."

_I wish you weren't._ But Connor was determined not to argue further. He'd meant this gesture to support Harry, not to cause him more distress, and it seemed he'd unwittingly wound up doing that.

"All right," he said.

Harry smiled at him, hugged him, and slipped into the school before Connor could say anything more. He stared after him, then looked up at Snape. "What can we do to make this easier for him?" he whispered.

"I truly do not know, Mr. Potter." Abruptly, Snape seemed to realize that he was being almost pleasant to Harry's brother. He snorted and turned on one heel, adding over his shoulder, "Except continue to do what we do best, help him if he asks for the help, and _not_ put extra burdens on his shoulders."

"You were just as eager to help him as I was a moment ago!" Connor yelled after him.

Another sneer was his only answer. Connor concealed a snarl at his back. He got along much better with Draco than he ever could have hoped to a few months ago, but Snape was still uninterested in any gestures of goodwill.

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry expected it when he felt the pain pressing on his neck that night, and opened his eyes to find himself swooping along a deserted street in London. Above him gleamed the full moon, its light reflecting here and there in puddles; Harry supposed it must have rained during the day. Beneath him ran Hawthorn in werewolf form, eyes mad and gleaming, her inner beast controlled by a touch of Legilimency from Voldemort. She could not be turned or stayed from her course of wildness, but she could be made to hunt a specific target.

_Look at her, _Voldemort whispered into his ears. _Does it not sicken you, Harry, to know what I force her to do? Does it not hurt you to know that she will wake to find her hands and her jaws caked with gore, and recognize her murdered victim, and hurt because of it?_

Harry said nothing. He lay as if dead beneath the uncompromising, iron hold on his mind. He could do nothing right now. He would bide, and wait for his chance.

It was torture to watch as Hawthorn splashed through a puddle, froth dripping from her jaws, and then dropped to her belly as she heard the sound of her prey approaching from around the corner. But after last night, Harry was again becoming practiced in enduring torture.

_You can do nothing to prevent it._

And Harry gave nothing back to Voldemort's taunt but a seemingly helpless wail, because if he moved too soon, he would lose his chance.

He had to watch as Hawthorn sprang, her shoulder dashing into Remus's, knocking Moony's gray body from its feet. The other members of his pack whirled, snapping, trying to gain their bearings and figure out who was attacking their alpha in the narrow alley. But Hawthorn had locked her jaws in the fur on Remus's foreleg, the snarls nearly as horrible as the sounds Medusa had made while Oaken was raping her.

Remus reared and placed his paws on either side of Hawthorn's head, biting her firmly on the nose. She let him go with a dance and a jerk, and he faced her, already limping. The sight of the blood splashing on the pavement made Hawthorn drool, and again she slinked towards him, then broke into a charge that hit Remus and carried him spinning into a black female werewolf.

The black bit back, and for one moment they were a mass of tumbling legs and jaws. Then Hawthorn soared above the pile, ducked her head, and ripped sideways. The black werewolf's blood covered her when she backed off. She'd ripped the other bitch's throat out, Harry guessed.

Remus faced her with a shake of his coat and a growl that commanded the rest of the pack to back away. And then the true battle began.

They were far too evenly matched, Harry saw almost at once. Remus had been a werewolf for more than thirty years, while this was only the fourth anniversary of Hawthorn's attack, and he had that perfect control over the four-legged body that only came to those bitten as children. But Hawthorn was not on Wolfsbane, and so had no human instincts and reactions to hold her back—and she had no pack members to worry about hurting. She could fight without heed for whom she killed or what hurt she took herself, so long as she _inflicted_ pain.

And though Hawthorn was a bit smaller than Remus, the bite she'd given him on his left foreleg equalized matters.

They met in midair, leaping at the same time, and once again dropped to the ground, jaws working and clicking furiously, any sounds made muffled by thick fur. Fawn hairs gleamed, then gray, and Remus let out an undignified yelp as Hawthorn bit him somewhere tender. But then he unsheathed his fangs, and Harry knew the balance had tipped, and he was going to try his best to kill her.

A new pain pierced him. Since he could see this, the family alliance oath counted it as a betrayal that he would let Hawthorn be hurt like this, even while she tried to slay someone else.

Voldemort just laughed the harder when he felt that. Harry crouched beneath his hold, then drove all his concealed strength up in one smooth, coiled motion.

He burst through Voldemort's slackening, surprised grip, and he used his one free moment to good advantage. He reached out, lashing his will to the Dark Mark that still remained part of Hawthorn, even if buried under her fur in her changed state. He envisioned her bouncing back to her master, rather as he had once forcibly Apparated Evan Rosier after a duel.

_Back! Now!_

She yelped as her legs scrabbled at the ground, and then she was torn free and flying. The pain of the oath scar on Harry's left arm died. So far as the vow was concerned, he had kept it by removing Hawthorn from danger.

Of course, Voldemort closed back in then, and the anger he bore was thick and choking.

The pain was unspeakable. Harry rolled through it, since he knew that struggling against it would probably mean bursting or weakening his heart again. He screamed, the way that Lily had taught him to scream under torture, because there was no shame in that. All the while, he clutched one vision to himself.

Remus had halted in the dash after the vanishing Hawthorn and stared around in shock. His left foreleg was slashed well enough that he would limp for some time, but he was not further wounded, and the rest of the pack was already closing protectively around their alpha.

They would get him to safety, Harry knew, and then they would howl, spreading the warning to other packs. Even if Voldemort returned Hawthorn to London, the others would be prepared against her now, and she would not find victims as easily as she had found Remus when no one suspected.

He had spared the life of one more person he loved. For tonight.

And from the dashing, roiling madness in Voldemort's mind as he pushed again and again, forcing pain down Harry's body through their scar connection, _that_ was unacceptable. Voldemort would not send Hawthorn, or one of the other Death Eaters, on a rampage again merely to destroy innocents. He was furious that his perfect target had escaped. From now on, he would only truly seek to hurt those Harry loved.

And that was his weakness, that personal hatred.

Harry would use it against him.

And he had saved Remus's life. That was worth any amount of pain.

He still thought so even when Voldemort finally dropped him, disgusted, like a broken bird from the mouth of a cat, and he fell deeper into darkness, the pain slowly, softly melding into the mercy of unconsciousness.

_There is hope, so long as he hates me more than I hate him._


	34. Interlude: Small Sacrifices

**Interlude: Small Sacrifices**

_The Daily Prophet_

_August 18th, 1997_

_**VATES ASKS FOR HELP DEFENDING BRITAIN**_

_**Claims that it's not just his war**_

_By: Melinda Honeywhistle_

Harry vates made a speech on the grounds outside Hogwarts today, defining new goals for the Second War with You-Know-Who. He made some rather surprising points, given that so far he has rarely worked with ordinary wizards and witches on anything but a local level. He believes that You-Know-Who is hunting him personally, and that if he dies, it might mean the end of the war for some people—but that it should not. He used the metaphor of a wheel that many people must keep pushing in order to symbolize the war's success.

Reactions to the speech were mixed.

"It's an admirable gesture, of course, but one gets the feeling of 'too little, too late,'" one witch on the street told this reporter. "If You-Know-Who really wants Harry, then he'll hunt him. The rest of us can't do anything to help."

"The vates is trying to reassure people in the best way he knows how, by showing respect for their freedom and their ability to help the larger war effort by doing small things," Acting Minister Juniper said. "It's an admirable effort, but so long as he divides Britain the way he's doing now—acting separately from the Ministry, calling on foreign countries to become involved in a struggle that's not theirs to fight, and refusing his duty according to the prophecy—then he'll only convince people they should be taking up extra duties. Those duties aren't theirs. Only a Lord-level wizard can face a Lord-level wizard." The Acting Minister did not respond to questions about his opinion on the presence of two Ladies in the country.

Among those people who have been saved by Harry's training or allies, however, the reaction was markedly different.

"We can make a difference, and I wonder that I never thought of that before," said Cedric Diggory, a young wizard who left Hogwarts a few years ago and is now Reserve Seeker for the Falmouth Falcons. "When Harry trained us in dueling spells in Hogwarts, it seemed separate from what happened outside it. A game. But the battle's come now, and it's not a game. Everyone has to help." Diggory went on to follow his interview with an announcement that he intends to leave the Falcons in order to help the war effort.

"Well, I certainly intend to do all I can." So says May Morris, a Muggleborn mother of three who lives in London. "You-Know-Who has vampires and Dark wizards and God knows what else in his train, and he just shouldn't be able to have all the advantages, that's all. I have a brother who specializes in making ward-stones. It's a small enough sacrifice to bind a shard of myself to one and send it to Hogwarts to become a tireless guardian."

Members of the Wizengamot mostly remained silent, or were not available to comment.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

_The Vox Populi: Voice of the People _

_August 19th, 1997_

_**PROPHECY OF FAILURE:**_

_**If the Ministry acts against the vates, they will lose**_

We're all familiar, by now, with the running dispute between our vates and the British Ministry. That clown who goes by the name of Acting Minister Erasmus Juniper believes that Harry must 'fulfill his duty' by fulfilling the prophecy and killing Voldemort, and, not incidentally, obeying the Ministry.

But there's only one prophecy abroad in the land, and who does it point to as the wizard we need to listen to and trust in? Not Erasmus Juniper. Harry vates, once called Potter.

He's right that he can't do this alone. He's even more right that he can't do this if people sit back and wait for him to rescue them.

And who's the biggest proponent of telling others to sit back and wait for him to rescue them? That's right. The Ministry, under Acting Minister Erasmus Juniper, willing to take the prophecy all too literally. "Because Harry is supposed to defeat You-Know-Who, he will," they pipe like stirred-up fairies. "He doesn't need any help."

Except that prophecies are never that clear, and of course Harry himself has asked for help.

This is the Vox Populi urging anyone and everyone who reads this article to contribute to the war effort, and turn against the Ministry. If you work for those bastards, don't go into work today. Send Howlers to the Acting Minister to let him know how much you disapprove of his coarse, crude actions. Take money that you were going to spend on one of those futile protective amulets the government pretends to sell and send it towards the war effort instead.

It's much better than waiting around for the Ministry to seize your properties and your vaults, isn't it? That's what's been happening to some pureblood families the Acting Minister doesn't like the looks of.

Stand up. Fight! And let both the Acting Minister and Voldemort know that you don't intend to lose the war by lying back and letting the powerful fight it for you. They're bastards, the both of them. And bastards don't deserve either to win your support or to win a war.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

_The Daily Prophet_

_August 21st, 1997_

_**ACTING MINISTER ANNOUNCES 'CAUSE FOR HOPE'**_

_**Cause has to remain 'secret for now'**_

_By: Melinda Honeywhistle_

Acting Minister Erasmus Juniper called for a special press conference today in front of the Ministry. He announced that he has secured help for the war, and made an important step forward in a "cause for hope" that will ease the burden of those laboring under You-Know-Who's depredations and fears of discovery by Muggles all over the country.

"I'm afraid that cause for hope has to remain secret for now," he said apologetically when several calls for explanation arose. "It would reveal too much of our strategy to You-Know-Who if I simply announced it in public. But I can assure you that the Ministry has been very busy these past few days insuring that everything flows smoothly when things begin to change."

The Acting Minister called Harry's continuing attempts at both gathering help from ordinary wizards and witches and freeing magical creatures "admirable but misguided." "If he would accept the help and guidance of the Ministry," he said, "I think he'd soon find himself on the right road."


	35. A Meeting of Ministers

**Chapter Twenty-Six: A Meeting of Ministers**

Erasmus checked through the letters with a slight frown on his face. It was true that most of the Ministers he had sent owls to had replied to him; that part of the cause for hope he had represented to his people had not been a lie.

But most of the letters expressed reserved neutrality, even though they agreed on the importance of keeping the Statute of Secrecy. Some leaders said they could not travel to Britain at the moment, with the country in the middle of a war. Others hinted that they had problems of their own to deal with regarding Muggles in their communities piercing magical barriers and finding them out, and that while they wished Erasmus good luck, they could hardly spare him attention. The Ministers of Portugal, France, and Spain had never replied at all.

Sternly, Erasmus told himself he had not expected them to. They had sent help to Harry, after all. That alone signaled where they stood.

But he _had_ hoped that he would manage to arrange a meeting with more than one foreign Minister. It seemed that he wouldn't. Evamaria Gansweider, the Minister of Magic for Austria, would be joining him in a few minutes. She at least was willing to talk about representing his cause to the International Confederation of Warlocks—something Erasmus couldn't do himself since he was only Acting Minister of Britain, and not an actual elected official.

Erasmus closed his eyes and tried to remind himself that this compromise, if less hopeful than he had expected or wanted, only had to endure a little while. Minister Gansweider could look at what was happening in Britain and take much more detailed information back to the International Confederation. Once the Ministers heard what was happening—from the mouth of one of their own, _not_ biased newspapers or Harry's equally biased speeches—they would move.

Voldemort was a threat to their world. Erasmus did not doubt that, would not deny it. But he was also one they could contain in Britain, particularly if the prophecy came true and Harry destroyed him. The threat of revealing their world to the Muggles was one that stretched beyond the British Isles, and which other countries would have to act on hastily to prevent Harry's far-flung Light allies, the Opallines, from working at. If one branch of the Opalline family had shown off their holdings on the Isle of Man, then, Erasmus was sure, it was happening elsewhere. The Old Blood tended to act and think as one.

"Sir?"

Erasmus stood up. An Auror named Hawksbane stood in the doorway, unsmiling—of course, he was always unsmiling.

"Minister Gansweider is here, sir."

Erasmus made sure his official robes were perfect one more time—not completely formal robes, of course, because he didn't wish to make a claim to status that he didn't have—and that the translation charm was in effect. Then he nodded to Hawksbane and followed him into the corridor, where three more Aurors fell into place around him. It was a small guard for an Acting Minister in times of danger, especially since You-Know-Who had shown that he wasn't above political assassination. Minister Gansweider would likely have her own guards.

She did, Erasmus saw when Hawksbane escorted him into the meeting room, a grand place decorated with stars in the twelve constellations of the Zodiac on the ceiling. Indeed, the two tall wizards who had accompanied her were so overwhelming that for long moments Erasmus could not see the Minister herself. But then they moved aside, and showed her.

She was taller than Erasmus had expected, though, of course, he had only seen her once, and that was kneeling down to peer through a Floo connection. She rose to her feet on seeing him, and faced him without a smile. She was dark-complexioned, dark of hair and eye—though a stray gleam of light from the ceiling showed that her eyes might be deep blue instead of brown. Her hair was long and thick, and her neck looked almost too slender to bear the weight of it.

"Minister Gansweider," he said.

"Please, call me Evamaria," she said, her voice staccato and sharp. It took him a moment to realize that was because she spoke English, without bothering to use the translation charm.

Erasmus nodded politely, though he would not think of her that way; there was too much potential for disaster in approaching an ally informally, especially in these troubling times. "Evamaria. Please, if you will sit down?" He swept a hand towards the chairs around the table, and she sat down as if expecting a trap to spring from the middle of one, all the while watching him carefully.

_Of course, I have only proven myself interesting, not trustworthy, so far. _Erasmus made himself comfortable in the chair across from Minister Gansweider. "You know that the International Statute of Secrecy has been violated several times in Britain in the past few months?" he asked.

"Yes." Minister Gansweider leaned forward. "And I do not understand why you do not take a simple solution. In my country, we have a Dark Lady, but so long as we give her honor and humor her whims when the occasion requires, she works with us—or leaves us alone. I do not understand why the same effort has not been made to propitiate your Lord."

_So she does want to talk about the war. Very well. _Gracefully, Erasmus switched the focus of his thoughts. "With You-Know-Who, that would be impossible, I'm afraid," he said smoothly. "He wants the destruction of many Light wizards, or their submission to him, and the complete exile of all Muggleborns from the wizarding world. We cannot give in to him."

Minister Gansweider's frown grew more pronounced. "I did not mean the barking dog, Lord Riddle. I meant Harry _vates._"

She spoke the title as if it were a natural part of Harry's name. Of course, that would be the way that many people saw it, Erasmus reflected, and he had done little to keep that impression from persisting. "He is only a child," he replied, "too young to understand what he wants. And he believes in unfortunate, undesirable things. Exposing our world to the Muggles, for example."

Minister Gansweider ignored his subtle attempt to steer her back to the topic of conversation they'd actually come together to talk about. "He is seventeen, I had thought."

"He is," said Erasmus, wondering what that had to do with the statement he'd made.

"Legally an adult, then," said Gansweider, and her stare seemed to go right through him. "Unless I have mistaken the British laws, in which case I must apologize most dearly."

"He is legally of age," Erasmus said. "But he is still a child in mind and beliefs, prone to be idealistic, and trying to do many things that do not involve the fighting of You-Know-Who. That is what I meant by child. And, of course, the beliefs that he _does_ have are ones he conflicts with the Ministry on."

"I believe a more useful course would be compromise," Gansweider persisted.

Erasmus was unable to keep a frown from staining his face. "We have offered him several, Minister," he said. At least he was able to keep his voice from sounding short. "He continues to reject them. He would not, for example, agree that we had the right to hold several of his close allies under suspicion because they bear the Dark Mark—the Mark of Death Eaters, You-Know-Who's sworn companions—and because one of them had actually tried to kill the Headmistress of Hogwarts. He will not work with the Ministry in our attempts to rid Britain of Dark magic. He has offered shelter and refuge to those who break the law. He has had an active part in politics ever since he became fourteen, in fact," he added, thinking of the way that Harry had managed to depose Fudge. Erasmus would be the first to admit that Cornelius was not the _best_ Minister they had ever had—Scrimgeour had been far better—but that a child so young should have played such a decisive part in his retreat galled Erasmus. There was a reason that politics in Britain was a pursuit for older wizards. Only they were able to appreciate how much was put in danger by meddling. "We know that our beliefs and his lie too far apart for reasonable compromise."

Minister Gansweider rapped her fingers on the table. Erasmus could almost feel her weighing whether or not to say something.

"Feel free to speak your mind," he urged her. He wanted her to feel comfortable and able to be honest here. After all, he was hoping she would be the same way when explaining Britain's condition to the International Confederation.

"You seem to have approached him as a child each time," said the Minister. "With his youth in mind, and no other factor. Have you not tried approaching him as a powerful wizard? That is what we have done with our Lady for years. She was nineteen when her powers built to full strength, and we would not have arrived at a satisfactory resolution with her if we had thought of her only as a young woman, not one of the most dangerous and powerful witches alive."

Erasmus sighed. "But your Lady Monika is a bit more reasonable, I trust? I have tried reason with Harry. It does not work. He does not understand the necessities of war. He continues to trust in unreasonable ideals even when it would be best to give them up." He leaned forward. "He has already visited the Muggle Prime Minister of Britain, even though the problem of You-Know-Who's depredations is not one that Muggles can solve."

"Why did he wish to visit him, then?" Erasmus was at least pleased to hear the same bewilderment in Minister Gansweider's voice that he had felt himself on hearing of Harry's visit to Blair.

"Those unreasonable ideals," Erasmus replied instantly. "The ones that do not allow him compromise. He said the Muggles should know the truth behind the war, and then they would be less likely to react irrationally. But how _else_ could Muggles be expected to react when confronted with the magical world? It was madness to go to them, but Harry did it because he thought he should. He did not think about the fact that it was wartime. He did not think about our long history of separation from their world, and the _excellent_ reasons that such separation was enforced in the first place. He simply did it because he believed his principles demanded it."

Gansweider bowed her head as if in thought. Then she stood and said firmly, "I would like to examine a detailed history of every violation of the International Statute of Secrecy in the last several months, Erasmus. It is, after all, what I came here to do."

Erasmus stood, smiling, and feeling warm inside again. _I have a champion, even if it is only one in the whole of Europe. _"Follow me, Evamaria." He was just in time to catch himself before he said the title.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

"Do you think that all Dark magic will be gone from Britain forever if we win this war?"

Aurora concentrated on her reply to Augusta Longbottom, who had once again written requesting a special dispensation for half-human wizards and witches whose conditions were not harmful to the "average viewer" to go without glamours in normal society, and tried to ignore Cupressus. She could always pretend that she hadn't heard the question, after all. They were working in the most important room in the Ministry at the moment, the one that collated information on the breaching of barriers between the Muggle world and the magical world, as well as on wizards and witches whose demands might lead to such breaches. Every hour or so, frantic shouts rang out as someone discovered another breach, and the murmur of conversations and the scratch of quills was always loud. Not hearing someone was a perfectly legitimate excuse for avoiding conversation.

She did not understand the Apollonis patriarch of late, though when they first swore to the Order of the Firebird and began their rise to power she thought she had understood him very well. He worked with Juniper because he was fanatical for the Light himself and because Scrimgeour and Harry had personally insulted him.

And now—

Now he asked too many questions.

It had begun when he asked hard question after hard question about Juniper's anti-Dark legislation. He had asked which spells would be affected, and how well they could enforce the new law. It had come to the point where Aurora actively dreaded seeing him open his mouth.

And then he had started asking questions of other people. How likely was the Order of the Firebird to accomplish meaningful actions, and how likely to remain an empty oath? Why weren't they out fighting in the field against Voldemort? Harry might think himself limited to a defensive war, but that did not mean _they_ were. When would the Ministry turn its attention to Ireland, where Death Eater activity was quietly but unmistakably increasing? Why had so many Light families turned to Harry as if he, and not Erasmus, was their last best hope?

On and on it went. Aurora didn't like his questions, because she didn't know what they implied. How could Cupressus's loyalty be wavering? He was not the kind of wizard who changed his mind.

And yet, sometimes, he spoke like someone on the brink of doing so.

"I asked you a question, Aurora." His haughty manner when he believed himself ignored had not changed, at least, she thought, and dug the quill into the parchment again. "Do you believe that all Dark magic will be gone from Britain forever if we win this war?"

Aurora sighed, scanned the letter to Mrs. Longbottom one more time, and decided there was nothing she could add but her signature. The reasons against removing the glamours in public were simple. The British wizarding population didn't need another source of shock and stress. And they didn't need to decide that many of the people they accounted human were in fact half-breeds, and therefore likely to act in the interests of strange and foreign powers, rather than pulling together with ordinary wizards and witches. Mrs. Longbottom understood that perfectly well, Aurora was sure, and only persisted in her deafness because she was on Harry's side. As long as she was polite, however, and from a fairly old, proud, noble Light family, then Aurora had to reply to her with the same politeness.

"I do not believe it will, Cupressus," she said, turning to the Apollonis patriarch. As usual, he sat over a map of Ireland, picking out hiding places and ambush spots for both the Death Eaters and those forces they might send to oppose the Death Eaters. "After all, there will be Dark wizards from other countries who wish to sneak in and sell forbidden goods to our people. And there is always _someone_ who thinks that using blood magic is more convenient and easier than finding a difficult, expensive Light spell that does the same thing."

Cupressus stared reflectively over her head for a moment, then said, "You know that I am more than sixty years old, Aurora."

_He is beginning a speech without a question?_ The shock undid her, and left her to flounder, looking stupid, for a moment. Then she coughed and said, "I was aware of your age, yes."

Usually, he might have thought that an insult, and replied with a keen-eyed glance and a stinging retort. Now, he just went on staring at the wall. Aurora had to keep herself from turning around and seeing if there was anything particularly fascinating about it.

"I have seen the Dark rise and fall in Britain over my lifetime," Cupressus continued in a musing voice. "And in Ireland, too, of course. We had rumors of Grindelwald—and then suddenly they were more than rumors, they were fact, with Lightning Guard members in the Wizengamot, arranging to hand our country over to Grindelwald and those Muggles he worked with. And then our own Light Lord killed the Dark one. Those were grand times. Grand ones." For a moment, a smile flickered across his lips. "We were all so sure that Dark was stamped out forever in the Isles, then. The plot the Wizengamot members had made was awful. Not only Muggles but wizards would have been sacrificed in a series of blood magic rituals to make certain key British Muggle defenses fail. And, well, we had a Light Lord and a hero. Why would anyone turn to the Dark?

"But the Dark pureblood families remained, even if they dwindled in prestige and power, even if they worked to disassociate themselves from Grindelwald and his mad plan of controlling the Muggle world.

"And then Lord Voldemort arose. You remember that awful series of killings twenty years ago, the ones that made people afraid to say his name?" Cupressus cocked an eyebrow, and Aurora found herself nodding against her will. The _Daily Prophet_ had carried for one day, before it was censored, the image of a young witch floating with a distended belly full of snakes that continually gorged on her flesh, regenerated it, and feasted on it again, all because she had read Voldemort's name aloud. And that had been one of the milder attacks. "And the building Darkness, the horrible rumors that became fact. But it was still all right, because we had a Light Lord to face the Dark one, and then a child sent the Dark one away—forever, we thought. It was like something out of a history song.

"But the Dark pureblood families remained, even if they lost some of the power they'd raised back up since Grindelwald, and even if they had to resort to feeble excuses to explain away the Dark Marks on their arms." Cupressus grimaced as if he'd swallowed a lemon. "And the Ministry accepted the excuses, and released many of them back into proper society, as if they had any right to the name of wizard."

He lowered his eyes and sat in silence for a moment.

"And, Cupressus?" Aurora asked after a moment, forcing her voice into boredom. This was history she already knew, and even if his manner of telling it was rather compelling, she hated what it hinted at. Was Cupressus Apollonis feeling sympathetic for the Dark?

_Surely not._

"Things have changed," said the Apollonis patriarch to his desk. "There is no Light Lord. There is a Dark Lord, and a Light Ministry, and a boy who refuses to join either."

"Of course there is," said Aurora. "We _knew_ that. But one of Harry's problems is that he will not Declare, nor bend his pride enough to make any other gesture that would reassure a nervous and frightened people. He could heal the rift between him and the Ministry if he Declared for Light, but he won't."

"Do you not see?" Cupressus's eyes rose back to hers, so intent that Aurora felt another ripple of unease travel up her spine. "Before, there were always two paths, between a Dark so awful that one must resist it, and an imperfect Light that one could strive to make better. There was little choice in such things. A Light family must of course walk the Light road."

"I thought that was what you were doing now, Cupressus. When you swore to the Order of the Firebird—"

"Before," Cupressus continued, as if he hadn't heard her interruption, "there were always two paths. Now, there are three."

And then he turned away and began working on the map of Ireland again, as if nothing had happened.

Aurora stared at the back of his neck, with the hairs rising on hers. Then she shook her head sharply and turned to find an owl to carry the letter she'd finished writing to Augusta Longbottom. After that, she had another meeting arranged with Feldspar Yaxley, who had promised to tell her something of great moment and importance.

She would not think about what Cupressus had said. Despite his eccentricities, he would not—could not—abandon the allegiance that had guided his whole life, she knew, and his oaths to the Order of the Firebird were likewise irrevocable. Most likely, he simply wanted more attention, more power in the decision-making process of the Acting Minister's loyal ranks.

_That sounds like the Cupressus I know._

SSSSSSSSSSS

Harry quickly slid the book beneath the library table as he heard the footsteps behind him, and buried his nose in a book about Unassailable Curses instead. A moment later, Snape cleared his throat in a pointed manner. Harry looked up and blinked at him. He hoped the true weariness behind the gesture would hide the overly innocent part, and clear Snape of any desire to read his mind.

"How many hours have you slept since the night of the attack on Lupin?" Snape asked.

Harry shot a quick glance around, but they were alone in the library, without even Madam Pince nearby. Harry relaxed a bit. "Three hours a night," he said.

"You have tried—"

"Dreamless Sleep Potion, yes." Harry made himself shrug. "It doesn't work. The visions are stronger now that he's returned to full power, and now that he controls them and _wants_ to force me to have them, which wasn't the case in fifth year. They can break through any Occlumency barrier I raise. I checked," he added, in a deliberately bland tone.

Snape said nothing, but took a vial from his robe pocket. Harry studied the thick blue potion in it, and allowed his eyebrows to rise in curiosity. He didn't know the potion by either scent or color, which was unusual.

"This is a stronger version of Dreamless Sleep," said Snape. "Thickened with both a Calming Draught and a Lucid Dreaming potion."

Harry frowned. "But the Dreamless Sleep and the Lucid Dreaming potions should work against each other," he murmured. "Unless—"

Snape nodded. "The Lucid Dreaming permits dreams to happen, but the Dreamless Sleep prevents ordinary ones from breaking through," he said calmly. "And the Lucid Dreaming one gives you a degree of control. If this potion works as I think it should, then you have only to decide to dream about a certain thing as you fall asleep, and you will have those dreams instead of the visions."

Harry hesitated. "What about aftereffects?" he asked. "Would it permit me to wake, should I need to in a hurry? And will it leave me dazed the next morning?" That last was the reason he hated the Dreamless Sleep potion. The effect only seemed to grow more pronounced as he got older.

"It will insure that you have a full night's sleep, eight or nine hours," said Snape. "So, yes, it would be hard to wake you. As for the other, I believe the Lucid Dreaming addition should counteract that."

Harry shifted. "If there's a crisis in the middle of the night—"

"_Finite Incantatem._"

Harry jumped at the words, less because they had startled him than because Snape's voice was so sharp. The spell made his glamour vanish. A moment later, Snape was tilting his chin up, and Harry was trying not to fidget as dark eyes stared into his own.

"You are a mess, Harry," said Snape. "Your eyes are bloodshot, you look as if you haven't eaten in several days, and your reactions are already becoming slower and duller than normal."

Harry stifled a flash of resentment. He had been about to take care of that; he'd found a solution in the book on his lap. But it wasn't a solution that he could explain to either Draco or Snape. They would have disapproved, and absolutely forbidden him to use it.

He knew he should trust them more. They had both said that to him enough times in the last few days. But still—if he had found a solution that would work, even if it _were_ dangerous, did he have time to argue it over with them? It was no more danger than he faced every time he went to sleep and Voldemort hovered in his head, anyway. Voldemort's latest trick was forcing Harry to share the mental space of his captured Death Eaters. Being in Hawthorn's mind for most of last night, feeling her helpless paralysis and sharing her despair, had increased Harry's determination to do something that would not only end the visions but turn the trick on Voldemort.

"Do you have a true objection to drinking the potion?" Snape asked, his eyes so steady that Harry had to look away. "Or are you merely resentful that I found a solution—that I _helped_ you, when your instinct is still to shun help that you did not have a hand in making or winning, directly?"

Harry spread one hand in a helpless gesture. "I'm trying to learn better about that," he whispered. "I'm _trying_. Why do you think I made that speech? And it worked." More people were pouring into Hogwarts to learn defensive spells, and a few people with specialized skills, especially Healers, had come to ask what they could do. Harry would like to place one Healer in every wizarding community of every size in Britain and Ireland, if he could.

"But you have made a point of not asking me and Draco and your brother for help in the past few days, either," Snape pointed out.

"I just—" Harry swallowed. "You do so much. I don't want to put extra burdens on you."

"And you do not wish to share reactions with us that you think we will disapprove of," said Snape, his voice without inflection.

Harry looked away.

He stiffened in shock as a pair of arms came around him, and Snape's voice whispered fiercely in his ear, "You will have my support in whatever you do from now on, Harry. The mistake I made the night you went to Cornwall was one I never should have made. You should have been able to come to me when James and Lily were murdered, when the darkness within you first made you wary of yourself, when you were afraid of failure. I _wish_ to take up those burdens, as you call them. Will you trust me? Will you remember that I have said this? Will you come to me when you next wish to confess something?"

Harry swallowed, and looked at the vial of blue potion in Snape's hand. It had never even occurred to him that Snape might be able to invent a potion that would stop the visions. He had stopped himself from asking not because the justification about not putting extra burdens on Snape was foremost in his mind, but because it had seemed so utterly natural to act alone.

_Even if I'm overcoming that with my allies, I suppose I might still have to work on it with my closest family._

"Yes," Harry whispered. "All right."

"Good," Snape said, with no change of expression and without releasing his hold on Harry, though Harry knew someone else could come into the library at any moment. "And now, what were you researching to end the visions?"

"Sir?"

"I saw you shove the book beneath the table when I approached you, Harry."

Harry ran a hand over his face. "I should have heard you coming."

"I told you that your reactions were dulling," said Snape mildly. "Now, what is the book?"

Silently, Harry pulled it out and showed it to him. _Diverse Dreams. _Snape said nothing about the title, only listened as Harry haltingly explained his theory. Given that he and Voldemort were connected by hatred as well as magic, he had thought he might be able to trap Voldemort in the most hate-filled corner of his own mind, and make him see what he _wished_ to see, even make him think that Harry was succumbing to the loathing and would join his side soon.

Snape listened to everything without interrupting. Then he shook his head and said, "There is one thing you have failed to consider, Harry."

It was said so gently that Harry couldn't even take offense to it. "What is that?" he asked.

"Every other time we have fooled the Dark Lord like this," Snape said, "in your second year when I wove the shields around your box while Tom Riddle was trapped inside it to content his lust for pain, and in your fifth year when we created a deception to make him think he _must_ attack Hogwarts on Midsummer Day, it barely succeeded. It required Legilimency, the will to domination that he wields so well and you do not. And the Dark Lord—this shard of him—has experience with that tactic now. If he sees something in your mind that pleases him, he is much less likely to simply believe it. He will probe and poke at you until he has the physical evidence and the glimpses into your emotions that he requires. False visions could not hold him for long."

Harry shut his eyes. "I didn't think of that," he muttered. "You're right."

"You will take the potion, then?" Snape asked, again without judgment, without accusation.

And that was all Harry had wanted, and thought it most likely that he wouldn't get—advice without chiding, showing him a better way while not telling him, constantly, that what he felt was wrong. He had dismissed it as a childish fantasy. Snape hated his parents too much not to make some comment about his grief for them. Snape believed him too strongly of the Light not to dismiss the darkness Harry harbored. Snape would sneer over Harry's attempts to keep the visions at bay, not try to understand why he wanted to do it this way.

And none of it was true. Harry could have the support he wanted, if he would reach for it.

It was nearly enough to make him cry. He convinced himself that was because of his weariness and not his weakness, and nodded.

"I'll try it," he said quietly.

Snape's arms tightened around him, and Harry would have believed that he felt something like a hug in them, if he dared to hope that far.

But the only thing his guardian said was, "Good."


	36. Star of Hope

**Chapter Twenty-Seven: Star of Hope**

Harry opened his eyes slowly. He didn't think the odd sight in front of him had anything to do with the blue potion that Snape had given him. At least, he _hoped_ it didn't, or he would refuse to take it again, because the thought of going through the rest of his life while seeing blue sparks was too annoying to contemplate.

A soft voice, skirled with music, said, "Harry? _Vates_?"

Harry sat up slowly. Draco mumbled and rolled over, which made Harry wonder if he couldn't hear the voice, if it was directed to his ears alone. "Dobby?" he asked. Dobby was who the voice _sounded_ like, but he had never taken this particular manifestation: a swirl of blue sparks like smoke from a fire, a dancing constellation that ran all over the air in front of Harry and braided back on itself like a ribbon.

"Not Dobby," said the voice, and it gleamed and caught fire along its closest edge. Harry had to steel himself not to jerk back from it. "But one like him. You may call me—" It paused, then said, "I like Miranda."

"Miranda?"

"Miranda," said the light and the voice, and then they wove together into the shape of a small, darting green lizard with an enormous crystalline fan on its back, which scurried up the blankets towards Harry and sat there, flicking its long tongue at him. "I was the one who would have been a house elf that night you freed my mother, but when you cut our web, she managed to free both of us."

Harry nodded, remembering now. Dobby had fetched him to the side of a birthing bed; a house elf named Jiv whose owner had given up on the claim to ownership was struggling to birth her child, and might easily have died with him. Harry had cut part of the web, freeing Jiv's magic, which enabled her to save her own life and completely destroy the web waiting to take her child.

"Why have you come?" Harry asked, though he knew the answer might be any number of things. House elves were free beyond the imagination of wizards, at least in their proper forms. Miranda could have come to observe, to have fun, or to do something else that would only make sense to an immortal shapeshifter.

"To help you."

Harry blinked and leaned forward. He had not expected that answer. "Help me in the war?" he asked.

The lizard tilted its head to the side and flicked its tongue again, as if thinking. "Help you with defending," it said. "You need someone to help with the safehouses, don't you? Someone trustworthy. Someone who can defend with more than wind, someone who won't go flying off at every second moment."

"Kanerva will help, but she isn't dependable," Harry murmured.

"And I am." Miranda stamped her small feet and inflated the fan on her back until it gleamed like quartz. "I am very dependable! I want to help! Will you accept my help? Or will you send me away?"

"I would never reject anyone who wishes to help and has good intentions," said Harry, still a little shocked. "But I—well, most house elves would have no reason to want to help wizards, since so many of us still enslave you."

"But I have never been enslaved," said Miranda. "And I have walked many paths already, and been in many shadows, and around many realms of bronze. There is no reason not to come back and want to help you, after that."

Harry tried desperately to look as if he had some idea what she was talking about. "Very—well," he said slowly. "If you're sure that you want to do this, that it wouldn't be a source of constraint for you."

"I'm sure," said Miranda, and scuttled closer, putting one foot on his hand. It was soft and sticky, like half-melted butter. Harry hesitantly touched her head. Her scales were green, he saw, flecked with gold, rather like the sight of his own soul that he'd had sometimes, the colors of Dark magic and Light. "I have never defended anyone before. I have been too busy learning. This will be new. And one cannot have too much newness."

Harry found himself smiling. "There are many people who would not agree with you."

"I do not expect them to agree with me." Miranda's mouth fell open as she yawned, and then she curled close to Harry. "I wish to sleep here. Is there anyone who will object to me doing that?"

"_Me._"

Harry jumped and glanced up. Argutus had his head curled over the top of the bed, and was glaring at Miranda. The Omen snake so rarely spent nights with him anymore—he preferred to wander the castle and concentrate on learning runes and what little he could of the English alphabet—that Harry had not even thought he was present, much less that he would be able to understand their conversation.

"I thought we were speaking English," said Harry, with a glance at Miranda.

"Oh, I thought it would be more realistic if we spoke in Parseltongue," said Miranda, "since I am a lizard. So I translated. Was that wrong?" She looked back and forth between Harry and Argutus—not anxiously, but alertly, as if she were interested in learning more about this strange new set of manners.

Harry toyed with the idea of telling her that she was a lizard and not a snake, and lizards didn't speak Parseltongue, but decided against it. Argutus was hissing, anyway, complaining that she couldn't sleep in his place.

"Why don't _both_ of you sleep in the bed?" Harry suggested at last. "Argutus on my chest, Miranda curled next to my side?"

Argutus turned his head from side to side, as if examining substandard prey offered to him. "_It will do,_" he said at last. "_As long as I am able to crawl up and curl into position first._"

"Why wouldn't I let you?" Miranda asked.

As stiffly as a serpent could, the Omen snake flowed up the bed, glimmering folds of scales lapping over Harry's chest and shoulders. Harry stroked his spine, and wondered thoughtfully if Argutus had been ruffled about being ignored. He had said nothing, and so Harry had simply assumed that he didn't mind. Of course, he hadn't sought him out and asked, either.

_So much of the war occupies my time and attention. If I have a choice between normal life and war, I seem to choose the war without faltering. I wonder if there is any way to alter that, to make myself remember and value the people—and snakes—around me more. Trusting Snape and Draco enough to tell them what I'm thinking is a good first step, but not enough._

Miranda followed Argutus, curling so close that Harry could barely distinguish her from the blankets and the warm drape of the Omen snake's tail—until the fan on her back poked him in the side. He yelped, and Draco stirred, blinking open eyes that had gone hazy with sleep.

"Harry?" he whispered.

"It's all right." Harry stroked his back. "Just Argutus."

Draco hummed in response, and moved closer, arranging his arm so that it draped over Harry's chest but didn't brush against Argutus. Harry blinked at nothing for a long moment, then let his senses casually extend in several directions, so that he could feel everything around him.

Nothing but warmth, cradling him so close that his eyelids drooped of their own accord, and he barely remembered to think of sunlight so that would be what he dreamed of, instead of having visions. He shifted a bit, or tried, but his muscles seemed to be puddles of mush, and he felt so _good_ that the thought of moving too much hurt.

He was asleep more deeply and swiftly than he had managed in the past several months, enraptured in a warm pile of snake, lover, and transformed house elf.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

"And you think we can trust her?"

"It's not a matter of trusting me," said Miranda, who clung to Harry's arm, before he could respond. "It's a matter of what I want to do. And I want to help." She flicked her tongue out, and the fan on her back inflated, glittering in the midst of the sunlight that poured through the windows of the Great Hall. "I assure you, house elf magic is harder to pierce and drain and detect than ordinary wizarding spells."

Harry could feel dubious glances coming their way. Well, he couldn't entirely blame them.

He and Miranda had decided to make their announcement in full view of all the refugees living in Hogwarts, just after breakfast. Since so many people were caught between fear and fear—not wanting to stay in the school in case Voldemort attacked it searching for Harry, but also not wanting to go to a safehouse after what had happened to Malfoy Manor—Harry thought it would help them make up their minds.

But the glances were glassy, and the murmurs thick, and Harry knew that most of the refugees were probably wondering how exactly a _lizard_ could help them.

"Miranda?" he asked.

She looked up at him and flicked her tongue.

"Could you transform?" he asked, making sure to speak in Parseltongue. "Become something else? Not a house elf, because they wouldn't attribute much strength to that form either, but something that would strike them as beautiful and powerful and capable. They don't think of lizards that way."

Miranda lifted and flexed one foot in surprise. "They don't?"

Harry shook his head.

"Very well," said Miranda, though she still sounded painfully shocked, and then lifted her head. The fan on her back began to glow with captured sunlight. Harry fought the impulse to shade his eyes, even though several people in the crowd were doing so. He didn't want to seem as if he doubted her power, or would look away from her at the very moment she was gathering her strength.

The sunlight expanded and fanned out into a star-shape. Miranda still floated in the middle of it, a pair of large green-gold eyes that reminded Harry of Dobby's, but the shadow of her body was losing its form, expanding to become the edges of the star, while her limbs folded inward and melted. In moments, the star drifted towards the top of the Hall and hung just under the enchanted ceiling, solemnly beaming. Its colors were green and gold and crystal, a combination of Miranda's scales and the fan on her back.

A current of wind and magic blew out of the star just then, and Harry inhaled the scents of jasmine and thyme. He felt as if the light were tugging his spirits up with it, forcefully making him remember there was such a thing as hope in the world, even in the middle of the Second War with Voldemort.

"She _is_ a house elf," said someone in an awed voice.

"And she'll help us protect the safehouses," said Harry quietly, his head still tilted back. Green and gold spots filtered through the light like the spots on a peacock's tail, opening as eyes did, and then shutting again—winking at him, he thought. "She came back because she wanted to help."

He shot a glance at the refugees, trying to see how many of them could read the message inherent in that. Faces grew thoughtful, at least where they managed to look away from the awe-inspiring sight that Miranda made and pay attention to what he was saying. Harry smiled. _Well, if I have to choose between their paying attention to me and their paying attention to her, I know what I'll take._

He held out his hand. "Can you show us how you'll protect the safehouses, Miranda?" he asked.

Her light grew brighter, and then a curve of it detached itself from the edge of the star and descended like a great scythe. Harry made himself keep his arm out, though his skin crawled and he had to shove away memories of Bellatrix's blade coming down and cutting off his left hand.

The scythe traveled just overhead, parting his hair, and then rushed back the other way. Now it resembled the great pendulum that Harry had once met in the Room of Requirement, the night that he changed himself and admitted that he hated his parents. Again, memories went back into the mire at the back of his mind, not permitted to rise, and he kept his gaze and his pose steady.

The pendulum traveled back and forth several times, and Harry realized that Miranda was stirring up magic, gathering it to herself. But she wasn't drawing on Hogwarts's wards, nor draining the power of those in the room, the way that Voldemort or Harry would have had to do. She made the wind move instead, and inspired the movement with magic, and took it to herself.

The scents of jasmine and thyme grew thicker, and Harry closed his eyes briefly to prevent the tears from welling up. He could sense nothing malicious in that power. Perhaps it came from Miranda never having been imprisoned the way that Dobby and her mother had been, but it seemed that she had no notion of evil. She certainly had the power to do evil if she wanted, but why would she want to? Every turn of the pendulum, every pulse of light, asked that question, asked what use evil and ugliness were.

The scythe coiled back, now a flying whip of white and green and blue, and blended with the air itself. Then it seemed to pause. Harry craned his neck, trying to make out what the whip had wrapped itself around.

It turned out to be a fist of crystalline light, coming into existence to answer the whip. The fist relaxed into a hand shape, and then spread flat, growing into a white version of Miranda's star.

Harry felt the hand and the whip twirl past his head, and then Miranda reached casually into his head for the location of one of the safehouses—on the Hebrides, near the MacFusty dragon sanctuary.

A vision of the islands appeared before them. Harry shivered at the forbidding image of the stones and the leaping foam, and the cold that gripped and frosted them all year long.

Miranda's hand and whip traveled into the image, and then spread glittering husks of warmth around the isles, and the small building—larger inside than outside—that Harry had chosen for the haven. For a moment, the house elf magic flared so strongly that Harry feared Voldemort would sense it. But then it calmed, and wound itself into rock and water and air in a way that no wizard magic, with its insistence on distinguishing itself from its surroundings, ever could. When Harry blinked, he couldn't make out a trace of it.

"That is the way I will defend that one safehouse," said Miranda comfortably. "Others must be protected in different ways. But this will help. Won't it?" she added, as if wondering if this were a mistake, like her belief that humans would be impressed by the lizard form.

"It will do very well," said Harry, and shot her a smile that made the star-form dance back and forth in midair.

Harry turned to face the refugees again, and said, "I understand that it may be some time before you wish to leave Hogwarts for the safehouses, even now. Or you may wish to visit them and test the protections for yourself. But with Miranda's help, they will be more well-defended than ever before."

"Are you willing to wager our lives on that?" asked someone from the back of the crowd in a doubtful tone.

"More than that," said Harry. "My own." He looked at the vision of the safehouse, and then back at Miranda. "Can you keep that open while I walk through to the isles, Miranda?" he asked.

"I can," said Miranda.

Harry smiled slightly, hearing the teasing tone in her voice. "And will you?"

She bobbed from side to side in affirmation.

Harry stepped through.

SSSSSSSSSSS

He had to catch his breath, or try, as the wind whipped through him. He supposed that it was warmer now than it would be in the middle of September or December, but that wasn't much of a consolation. He took a stumbling step forward, wondering if he should cast a warming charm.

And then he was in the middle of a roaring heat as great as a fire. Harry blinked and looked up.

Above him floated a thin golden canopy, made of what looked like strained sunlight. It was house elf magic, he was certain, the blanket of Miranda's power that surrounded the safehouse. When he turned around and stepped back through the curtain, though, he couldn't feel or see any trace of it, and the cold wind continued whipping past him unabated.

Harry smiled, and it felt—good. Unless Voldemort managed to steal the location from Harry's mind, or a traitor within the safehouse let him know where it was, only great ill fortune would reveal house-elf-protected refuges to him. Harry supposed he might do well to set up Secret-Keepers and Fidelius Charms on the safehouses, too, to restrict the chance of a traitor letting Voldemort know where they were.

_If I can find people I trust to be Secret-Keepers, and some way to smuggle food in without using house elves._

The safehouse itself looked like an ordinary boulder now, until Harry actually touched the door. When he moved inside, he nodded to find rooms filled with thicker, warmer blankets than he had left them with, uncomfortable beds shifted into comfortable ones, and—a touch of Miranda's whimsy, he supposed—silver trees laden with amber fruit standing in several corners. The inside of the safehouse smoldered with summer heat, but it eased immediately with a cool breeze when Harry thought distractedly that it was becoming too hot. He suspected Miranda of a spell or a weave of magic that would respond to wizards' thoughts about things like the temperature.

_And this is what we can expect when we leave house elves to their own devices, _he thought, tilting his head back to gaze out the window at the edges of the storm-lashed island, _and let them return to help us as they wish, without coercion._

A spark of light caught on the rocks, and Harry turned his head in that direction, wondering—because it had become instinctive, by now—what malevolence this was, and if Voldemort had managed to slip past Miranda's protections after all.

And then he was reminded that house elves were not the only freed magical creatures who might be inclined to repay kindness with kindness.

A unicorn was standing on the point of the island. Foam leaped around it and then fell back, a duller color than its coat. The horn sticking up from its head looked more like a corkscrew than any Harry could remember, and also shone with more of a warm, milky, pure inner light. It turned its head and briefly glanced at him from an eye that he couldn't catch the color of.

Then it turned and sprang out across the sea.

Harry watched it run, the light spreading from its hooves and rippling across the waves, and felt his heart lift in answer. There might well be other unicorns tearing along the streets of Muggle cities, or the length and breadth of the British Isles right now, and managing to spread as much or greater joy than this lone unicorn had managed to give him in a matter of moments.

He turned and strode back out of the safehouse and through Miranda's gate to Hogwarts, feeling more confident and relaxed than he had in a long time.

SSSSSSSSSS

Snape eyed the blue potion once more, and then flicked his hand, burying the owl feather quill that had been used for three days in the center of the cauldron. A corner of the liquid wrapped around it, drowning it, and the edges of the plume wavered briefly as it sank, looking as if it had been coated by tar.

The potion gave a shushing sound more time, and then settled. Snape relaxed. That was the amount of potion Harry needed for one night brewed, and now he could think about something else.

In particular, what it would take to move this war onto an offensive basis.

No one else seemed to be thinking of it, which meant that he must. Harry, of course, was focused on defense to the exclusion of nearly all else. He did not even spend as much time researching Horcruxes as he did healing spells that would save lives, ways to make the safehouses impenetrable to attack, and dueling spells that would mean wizarding villages had a better than average chance of protecting themselves against Death Eaters, as long as enough of the people living in the village learned the incantations. Others were pursuing their small parts in the war—Rhangnara and Jing-Xi still researching the Horcruxes, Draco training to become better in battle with more skills than simply his possession gift, Regulus sorting through the Black artifacts to find some that might make a difference the next time Voldemort and Harry closed.

Snape could invent potions, but now that the most urgent one, to insure that Harry got rest, had been brewed, he would turn his attention to the purposes of offense.

Of course, the very best offensive tactic would be to destroy the Horcruxes. They knew where two of them were, now, and after hearing Rhangnara's rambling about the blood of Slytherin, Snape believed they knew the way that they could break the Unassailable Curse shielding the Peverell ring. The wand was beyond their reach for the moment, until they knew spells sufficient to remove it from Thornhall, where Indigena Yaxley had almost certainly taken it; Neville Longbottom was apparently working on those, a combination of actual spells and Advanced Herbology. The cup was also beyond their reach unless they managed to lure Evan Rosier close.

Snape knew the truth. If the Horcruxes had simply required a blood sacrifice to break their Unassailable Curses, he would have done his best to capture several of the Death Eaters and shed their blood on the ring and the Sword of Gryffindor. Or he would have controlled them with Imperius and had one walk onto the sword, the other commit suicide in front of the ring when they retrieved it.

Unfortunately, the Imperius Curse could not be used to get around the Unassailable Curses, which would be able to tell the difference between true love of Harry or desire to destroy a Horcrux, and feigned emotion grown in a victim's heart on command. There was also the small matter of Harry not forgiving him if he had found out Snape used the Imperius, but Snape was not worried about that. Harry would never have known. Besides, since he could not use the Unforgivable in any case, he would not be capturing Death Eaters.

_Unless…_

Snape cocked his head thoughtfully and began to pace back and forth in his office. That was another offensive tactic, of course, though sharply limited by the fact that they did not know where the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters were at the moment. Destroy the strongest parts of his gathering army, and he would not only suffer a disproportionate loss, given how few his servants were, but other Dark wizards might be discouraged from joining him.

But how was Snape to reach them? He had no idea of their location, and few would come to Hogwarts unless they were guaranteed to remain beyond the wards.

Then Snape paused and snorted at himself. _What is the one thing all Death Eaters have in common, besides a talent for Dark wizardry and some usefulness to the Dark Lord? Of course. _He pulled up his own sleeve and glared at the faded snake and skull on his left forearm.

_He used it as a weapon against us. With any luck, it can become a weapon against him._

Snape turned and strode rapidly to the fireplace, casting a handful of Floo powder in as he knelt down. "Silver-Mirror!" he snapped, to establish the connection, and hoped that Regulus did not have it shut.

He didn't, and he must have had a ward with a silent alarm ready to summon him when someone looked through, since he didn't have a house elf. He appeared with black, seamed marks on the side of his face that were not mere soot or dirt, and which made Snape narrow his eyes, forgetting his question for a moment.

"What gave you _burns_?" he snapped.

"A warded door where the wards were rather stronger than usual, and not spelled to open to the Black heir," said Regulus lightly. "It _is_ mostly grime, and not burns. See?" He pushed at his hair above his temple, and flakes of ash fell out.

"Idiot," Snape muttered, and then pushed ahead into the subject he had come about, refusing to let himself be distracted. "I need to know what happened when your Dark Mark was healed, Regulus."

Regulus lifted his eyebrows in curious question. "The first painting I went into, you mean? You know I can't tell you much about that, Severus. The secrets are to be kept between the Black heir and _his_ heir. Spells will start to choke me if I do more than vaguely hint about it."

"I know," said Snape. "I wish to know what you _can_ tell me. Did the healing remove a trace of the Dark Lord himself, or only flesh and skin and corrupt Dark magic? Did it cross the barrier separating body and soul, or was it a purely physical process? How long did the healing take?"

"I don't know how long the healing took in real-world terms," Regulus admitted. "At a guess, a week or a little more. And it wasn't purely physical, and it did have to dig out a shard of Voldemort himself. Not a soul-shard," he added hastily, presumably when he saw Snape's face darken. "It wasn't a Horcrux. But he had put a fragment of himself in it, the same way that you put a part of yourself in a ward based on blood. It's what allows him to track us, control us, infect—"

He broke off, coughing, his face turning so pale that the ashes on his temples stood out like bruises. He shook his head. "I can't talk about it any more," he muttered. "I'm already treading close to what the Black inheritance will let me reveal as it is."

"Very well," said Snape, as calmly as he could. The potion he would need to poison a Death Eater through the Dark Mark would not be easy; no potion that needed to cross the boundary between body and soul ever was. And if he had to work directly against the magic of the Dark Lord himself, he would need Harry's help.

He told himself that he had not expected it to be easy. And it was at least easier than destroying the Horcruxes, the only other effective offensive strike they could make.

_Though even that would be easy if Harry were not afraid to ask people to die for him._

Snape put the thought aside for now. Plans that depended on Harry changing his nature would not come to fruition. Enough of his enemies had learned that over the years that Snape would not balance his own hopes for success on it.

"Severus?"

Snape looked up, cocking an eyebrow. Regulus had wiped more ash away from his forehead, and now looked almost like a normal human being again.

"I don't suppose that you'd care to come to Silver-Mirror this evening, and share dinner with me?"

Snape blinked. He had thought it was early for dinner, but a discreet _Tempus_ charm revealed that he had in fact missed it, too caught up first in brewing and then his thoughts about what he must do to aid the war effort.

He should refuse, he thought. A poison that could affect Death Eaters would not brew itself. He needed to read and study before he could begin. And he needed to ask Harry questions, and figure out some way of experimenting on his own Dark Mark—and Peter's—that would not alert Voldemort to what they were doing.

But Regulus was looking directly at him, with that earnest gaze, as if friendship were real, that he had affected sometimes when they were both Death Eaters, and an hour's, or a few hours', delay would not make much difference to the ultimate progress of the potion. And relaxation was necessary to keep the senses alert and the mind functioning at the level a Potions Master required. Surely, his observations of Harry in the past few days had proven that.

"Very well," Snape agreed mildly, and used another handful of Floo powder to step through the fire.


	37. Her Triumph

**Chapter Twenty-Eight: Her Triumph**

"You will like this better, Parvati, you'll see," her mother whispered, her hands smoothing gently up and down her back. "You'll have private tutors for this last year of schooling, and there are many, many careers in Britain and abroad that accept NEWTs taken privately, not in a magical school. It's certainly better than going back to a place so dangerous when there's a war on."

Parvati dared to roll her eyes, because her mother had her head buried in her shoulder and couldn't see her face. "Of course, Mother. It must have been habit that made me pack." She glanced at the neatly packed trunk that sat at the foot of her bed. She knew that one exactly like it sat in her sister's room. Padma was as determined to make her own decisions and go back to her girlfriend as Parvati was determined to go back to her boyfriend.

"Of course. Well, that's understandable. I know that you were looking forward to your seventh year at Hogwarts." Sita Patil pulled back and gave Parvati a fond smile, caressing her cheek now. "But you know that your father and I just couldn't bear it if one of you girls died in an attack on the school?"

Parvati spent a long moment staring into her mother's eyes, looking for some sign or glimmer of understanding. They were seventeen, now, she and Padma. Her mother must have been seventeen once. She would understand the currents of love and the desire to be courageous and dare many things that older wizards and witches would never do, wouldn't she?

But there was no such understanding in her mother's eyes. Reluctantly, Parvati told herself that it was time she stopped looking for it. Sita had already been out of school when the First War with Voldemort had become terrible, with a choice about whether or not to fight, and certainly with the option to remain quietly and peacefully within her home if she wanted. Her husband's family had been neutral in the war, courted by both sides, and her parents had left Britain for a time, so she hadn't felt a true connection to anyone in the larger world.

Parvati did, though. And she was not about to leave them to fight the war alone while she had private schooling behind expensive and obscure wards.

"I know that," she said. "I know that you and Father love us, and I love you." She kissed her mother's cheek.

"I'm glad that you see it that way, Parvati." Sita stepped back from her with a little smile. "Your father and I were certain that you were going to break our hearts someday when you were Sorted into Gryffindor. But I'm glad that you've decided to be a sensible girl like your sister."

Parvati gave her mother a dazzling smile, while silently reflecting that neither Sita nor Rama, their father, knew Padma at all. "I'll unpack," she said, and turned towards her trunk.

Her mother trusted her, and left the room, shutting the door. Parvati at once dropped the lid of her trunk and glanced around, looking for anything she'd forgotten to take.

The only thing remaining that she'd really wanted to find room for and couldn't make fit, though, was her full-length mirror, which stretched not only from floor to ceiling but also from one wall to another, showing the entire expanse of the quiet wooden bedroom where Parvati had spent most of her holidays for the last six years (she and Padma had both come back from their first year Hogwarts insisting on separate rooms). She couldn't be sure of carrying the mirror unbroken to Hogwarts, unfortunately, and trying to arrange for shipping would surely have alerted her mother that something was going on. She did go and trail her fingers over the mirror in farewell, making it wake up and purr its pleasure.

Someone knocked on her door, as her mother had just a few minutes ago, but this time the light knock was immediately followed by three heavy ones. Parvati relaxed and skipped across the room, opening the door to reveal her twin sister's face.

Padma had her trunk in the pocket of her robe already, with spells that Parvati wished she could perform as neatly, and a few textbooks in her arms with their covers Transfigured to look like those awful nineteenth-century romances that their mother read. Parvati rolled her eyes. Trust Padma to have had trouble fitting _books_ into her trunk.

"Are you ready?"

Padma's eyes were huge and brown, like her own, but right now they were bigger than normal. Parvati supposed that was only to be expected, like the books. Padma was a Ravenclaw. She was brave—she'd trained in dueling with the rest of them, and helped to guard Harry when the rest of her House went mad in fifth year, and stood up against the people who thought she was mad for dating Luna—but she always would hesitate before she broke a rule, even a rule that deserved to be broken because it was so stupid.

"I am." Parvati shrank her trunk and tucked it into her pocket, glanced one more time at the mirror, which mewed after her, and then turned around and nodded at Padma. "Let's leave."

Predictably, of course, Padma hesitated then. "Are you sure that we shouldn't negotiate with Mother and Father one more time?" she whispered. "They're going to miss us. You know they are—"

"And we've tried that," said Parvati. "Both your negotiation and mine." Padma's had involved legal documents showing that, since they were seventeen now, and adults in the wizarding world, they could do what they liked. Parvati's had involved loud screams and thrown vases. Neither had worked. "They don't _accept_ it, Padma. Circumstances were different when they were young. And that's fine for them, but it's wrong for us. We have to do something different. Unless you're backing out now?" She tossed her long braid of black hair over her shoulder and fixed her eyes on Padma's face.

"Of course not," said Padma, her voice softening. "I want to see Luna again."

Parvati just nodded. She would never understand what her sister saw in the Lovegood girl—Merlin, she didn't know why her sister wanted to date _girls_ at all—but Padma was her sister, and Parvati loved her, and if Padma had wanted to stay behind or run off to Hogwarts all on her own, Parvati would still have supported her. That was what sisters did.

She reached out, and Padma entwined her fingers with hers. They both pulled their wands from their pockets and walked down the hallway together, then down the stairs towards the fireplace and their house's Floo connection.

Today was September first, and normally they would be at King's Cross already—Sita liked to arrive early so as to spend more time fussing over her daughters—and on the Hogwarts Express. But since their parents wouldn't take them and neither Parvati nor Padma could Apparate yet, they were taking the Floo into Hogwarts's hospital wing.

Parvati stood behind Padma as she tossed the Floo powder in and started the flames flaring green.

"Daughters? Where are you going?"

That was their father, Rama, who'd just emerged from his indoor garden behind the stairs. Parvati pointed her wand at him, and felt only a faint stirring of regret at the shock on his face.

"Daughters?" he whispered.

"We love you, Father," said Parvati. "But we're going to Hogwarts this year."

Surprisingly, her father smiled, but Parvati found out the reason a moment later. "They'll send you back," he said confidently. "If a parent objects and doesn't want his son or daughter to attend, then the Headmistress is legally obligated to pull the student out of school."

"Oh, dear," Parvati murmured. "Padma, do you want to tell him, or should I?"

"I didn't manage to do it last time," said Padma distractedly, who was trying to find some way to hold her books so they wouldn't bang her chest when they whirled through the Floo connection. "You try."

Parvati nodded, never taking her eyes from their father's face. She _did_ love him, really she did, but he just didn't _understand._ "When the student is seventeen," said Parvati, "and files the right legal paperwork, then he or she can stay in school. And we're seventeen, and Padma's already filed the paperwork. She did try to tell you she'd do that if you said no, but you kept thinking of us as little children, and underestimated her." She leaned against her sister's back, eyes alert in case their father reached for his wand. After the intensive dueling training she'd undergone, Parvati was sure she'd be quick enough to blast it out of his hand with an _Expelliarmus._

"What have we done?" Rama whispered, his voice full of mourning and his eyes full of tears. "Where did we fail you, that you thought you had to run away?"

"You didn't fail us," said Parvati. She was actually glad their father had caught them, now. She had wanted to say this, but she couldn't have done it during the arguments without alerting their parents to their plans. "You just didn't have to make the choices we did. So now we've made those choices. And we'll see you again someday." She paused, and then Gryffindor honesty compelled her to add, "Probably."

Rama lunged forward.

But Padma had finally figured out how she wanted to arrange her books, and she grabbed Parvati's hand, while shouting out, "Hogwarts hospital wing!"

They got whirled through the intense, dizzying motion that always made Parvati feel sick to her stomach, and left her on her knees when they tumbled out on the floor of the hospital wing, with soot all over her robes. She climbed back to her feet, coughing, while Padma rushed over to a shocked-looking Madam Pomfrey, already drawing out their copy of the paperwork they'd filed.

"Madam Pomfrey," she said, words tumbling over each other, "Parvati and I are seventeen, and we ask for sanctuary—"

Parvati rolled out of the way when her father came through the Floo connection then, and reacted as she'd been trained before she even thought about what she was doing. Her father sprawled on the floor in a Body-Bind, unable even to blink, and certainly unable to interfere as Madam Pomfrey, who counted as a teacher of the school for the purposes of this legal discussion, slowly listened to and then accepted Padma's plea for sanctuary.

Parvati smugly let her father go. Rama rubbed his jaw, which he'd hit on the floor, with a wince, and then shook his head.

"What am I going to tell your mother?" he murmured.

"The truth," said Parvati, and kissed him on the cheek. "We're doing this for love. I hope we can visit you over Christmas holidays, Father. Farewell."

She followed Padma out of the hospital wing. Madam Pomfrey would carry their paperwork to the Headmistress, so they didn't have to see her. Parvati was glad. She had someone she wanted to find.

Even before she could use the _Point Me_ spell, though, a familiar voice called, "Parvati?" The tone was one of both surprise and joy.

She smiled, and looked up, and then flung herself headlong into Connor's arms, clinging fiercely to him.

_My parents made their choice, and we made ours._

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

Minerva shook her head, but in amusement, as she studied the Patil twins' request for sanctuary and to attend the school that term. It was the fifth one she'd received, the third one from the children of a Light pureblood family. _Strange that so many children are less afraid than their parents are. _

"Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Poppy," she said, with a firm nod, and then put the parchment on her desk. Poppy hovered instead of leaving, however, and Minerva glanced at her, wondering what she wanted.

"Minerva," Poppy began in the voice that made her sound most like an interfering busybody, "have you been performing those spells I talked about, and taking the period of relaxation I mandated each day?"

_Not this again. _"I assure you," said Minerva, her voice much cooler because she couldn't help it, "my heart was only temporarily weakened as a result of Severus's unfortunate possession accident. I am _not_ an invalid. Nor am I someone who needs to watch her heart, Poppy. I am only in my seventies. I could easily live eighty years more."

"You had a weak heart even before this," the interfering matron insisted. "I _know_ you did, Minerva. I've seen the records from that time in your fifth year when you collapsed after stopping those Slytherin boys from torturing that Hufflepuff girl—"

Minerva snorted. "I was overexcited, and I'd cast twenty spells in swift succession. I think I'm excused some exhaustion." _And if I'd managed to figure out that those boys were under Tom Riddle's control at the time, then certain mysteries might have been solved much more easily._ She hadn't had the chance to figure it out, though, because she'd spent the next week in bed under Madam Balmbane's care, forced to endure spell after spell to heal her "weak heart." _There_ had been a busybody.

Poppy refused to back down. "You're not as young as you used to be, and the students need you. I want you to promise me that you'll use those spells and take some time to relax each day, Minerva, or I swear to Merlin, you'll be sleeping in the hospital wing until you do."

Minerva leveled her best glare at Poppy. The other woman glared back, which Minerva had to admit impressed her more than a little. Her best stare had been known to stop Severus in full bark.

"I'll use them, then," she said. "But I still don't think there's anything wrong." That was as conciliating as she could be. She had tremendous sympathy for her Gryffindors, and Harry, who'd spent more than their fair share of time in the hospital wing under Poppy's tyranny. There were always more _important_ things to be done than this endless worrying over one's health. Some worrying was good, of course, but it should not be incessant.

Poppy eyed her once, then nodded and left. Minerva defiantly changed into a cat and padded over to the wall of her office, staring up at the glass case that contained the Sword of Gryffindor.

They hadn't moved the Horcrux, and nothing had happened concerning it. When Minerva had handled it, it didn't burn her, and she felt nothing more than a faint tingle from the hilt, a tingle that told of immense magic—but that could have come from the age of the Sword. And of course they hadn't yet decided what they were going to do about it.

"I hate that he corrupted one of my mementoes," muttered a voice behind her.

Minerva lashed her tail in acknowledgment of Godric's presence, but didn't turn around. Sometimes she thought that she could melt the Sword to slag by the sheer force of her stare. It was worth a try, at least.

"Of course, it was either the Sword or the Sorting Hat," the shade of the Gryffindor Founder went on in a thoughtful voice, taking a seat on the edge of the desk. "Those are the only possessions of mine that survive. And, all things considered, I'd rather it was the Sword, which almost no one handles, than the Hat, which peers into thousands of impressionable young minds."

Minerva turned about, her head cocked. Though she couldn't speak aloud in this form, the connection between the Headmistress and the shades of the Founders ran deep, and Godric sensed what she wanted to ask without words.

"I think it's relics of the Founders that he wanted to corrupt," said Godric. He put out a hand in invitation, and Minerva bounded up, landing on the desk beside him. His hand felt like a cool breeze as it moved along her spine, just enough to tickle. "My Sword, Salazar's locket—and a ring that belongs to his descendants, too—and Helga's cup. And I would wager anything I still own, which admittedly isn't much, that the wand was Rowena's."

Minerva purred in consideration. It did make sense, though the diary that Harry had destroyed in his second year didn't fit the pattern. But possibly the diary had meant something to Tom in his childhood years.

"And Poppy's right, you know," Godric continued, so smoothly that Minerva actually arched her back against his hand before she realized what he was talking about. She drew back and stared at him in betrayal, but it seemed that her stare was losing its effectiveness all around. "You need to be more careful of your heart. Leading from the back isn't a bad thing, Minerva, as Rowena has told me on more than one occasion. You can still use your brains, even as you protect your body."

Minerva lashed her tail, and gave him another stare to convey what she thought of that. She was a Gryffindor. They were _made_ to fight from the front. It was certainly what she'd done during the First War.

Godric chuckled and scooped her into his lap, concentrating hard to solidify his arms and legs so that he could. "But this is the Second War, and this is different," he whispered into her ear. "It's all right, Minerva, to admit that you have weaknesses and that you're human, too, you know."

_Possible, but annoying. _Minerva dug in her claws and leaped off the desk and his lap, landing on the floor. Then she changed back to her normal self, and folded her arms. "I kept the school open against the pressure of the governors and the Ministry wanting me to close it."

"You did," said Godric, a curious expression on his face, as if he didn't know where she was going.

"I've stood up for my students when Voldemort came, when Albus turned out to be a disgrace to the name of Gryffindor and the name of Light wizard, and when other students acted in a disgusting manner towards them."

"Of course you have."

"And you want me to back down and lead from behind now?" Minerva shook her head, unable to explain why this was so important to her, but knowing that it _was._ "When that works better, I may do it, but I won't do it all the time, merely to preserve my health. My health is _fine_." And it was. The war had given her back a sense of purpose and restlessness that kept her better-prepared to go forward than the apathy that she saw gripping many in the Ministry and general population.

Godric looked at her with soft eyes and a faint smile. Minerva found the expression on his face familiar, but she couldn't place it.

"Very well, Minerva," he said quietly. "As you need to."

It was only later, as she walked down the stairs towards the Great Hall with the Sorting Hat tucked firmly under her arm, snorting and mumbling as it tried out its new songs, that she realized it was the same expression that she had often worn when she looked at her more impetuous and rule-breaking Gryffindors.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Hermione looked down the table and rolled her eyes. Parvati and Connor hadn't stopped _snogging _since they entered the Great Hall. And of course that was all right, that was even to be expected since Connor hadn't seen her most of the summer, but really, more than a minute with tongue was as much as anyone needed. And now there were children present, the straggling group of first-years lined up expectantly before the Sorting Hat.

Never mind that there were only sixteen first-years there, since most of their parents were too frightened to send them to the school. That only made it all the more imperative, in Hermione's eyes, not to frighten them off now, or make them think the older students did nothing but snog. Their eyes were already wide, darting from every corner of the room back to the tables and the enchanted ceiling, and they kept swallowing as if to keep their mouths dry. Hermione smiled a little wistfully, remembering how she'd felt when she came here for the first time.

She'd been nervous, a bit, but she'd read all the books already, and she _knew_ what Hogwarts was like. The biggest challenge had been arguing with the Sorting Hat, which wanted her to go into Ravenclaw, when Hermione had _known_ she wanted to go into Gryffindor. The Hat had finally given up and put her where she wanted to go rather than where, it had insisted, she belonged. Hermione was not about to listen to a hat, though. Books were far smarter, and the way the books described Gryffindor House had made her know it was the one for her.

"They look frightened," a voice murmured from behind her, and Hermione leaned back into Zacharias's arms.

"They're young," she said.

Zacharias sat down next to her, one arm securely around her shoulders. "I was never that nervous."

Hermione had to shrug. "Neither was I."

Zacharias gave her a smug glance from the corner of his eye. "No competition in this group, then."

And _that_ was so ridiculous that Hermione just had to laugh, which made Professor Snape glare at her as he led the first first-year, whose name Hermione thought was Amanda Bailey, up to the Sorting Hat. "I think we can find other people to be superior to besides a group of first-years, Zach," she whispered, using the nickname she knew he hated.

He drew back from her, nostrils flaring, but his attempt to say something was cut short by the Hat's shout of, "SLYTHERIN!"

Hermione turned back around, eyebrows raised, as the tiny Bailey girl pulled the Hat off her head and tottered towards the Slytherin table. The small group of older students sitting there welcomed her enthusiastically, even if the loudest clapping was Harry and Draco's. Bailey, Hermione knew, was not a pureblood name. The girl was either Muggleborn, or, at best, the daughter of a pureblood witch who'd married a Muggle.

From the look on Harry's face, he did realize that, and he was going to fight for Amanda Bailey's right to be treated like an equal if he had to.

The first-year after that, a boy named Gerald, went to the Ravenclaw table, and then came Lionel, who, appropriately enough, became a Gryffindor. Then Hufflepuff acquired two new Housemates, and there were two first-year Gryffindor girls, whom Hermione smiled welcomingly at as they sat down at the very end of the table.

The rest of the first-years went to Slytherin.

Hermione knew her own eyes were wide, but she had never heard of Slytherin dominating such a large share of the Sorting before. Of course, it was a small Sorting, but Slytherin was the smallest of the Houses. Many students in recent years had heard of the House's dark reputation and fought with the Hat if it wanted to put them there. Not to mention that the qualities necessary for Slytherin were less likely to exist in eleven-year-olds than in older children, Hermione thought, unless the children were purebloods.

And now—

Now that seemed to have changed.

Hermione wasn't deaf, and she'd cast a few listening charms out of curiosity. Two of the younger girls on whom the Hat wavered, unsure whether to put them in Slytherin or another House, begged to be Sorted into Slytherin. So did a boy Hermione was almost sure was Muggleborn, and one of the Hufflepuff boys was almost in tears when the Hat decided on that House, though he tried to smile bravely as the others welcomed him in with loud clapping.

Hermione looked at Professor Snape's face. It shone like the sun, at least if one knew the signs to look for. Hermione did, having seen him look like that over Harry, and sometimes when a Slytherin completed a potion in his class perfectly.

_The tide's turned, _Hermione thought. _Slytherin looks better now, its reputation is rising, and there might even be people out there who are trying to emulate its qualities, or who are teaching their children to do that. They've had at least a few years now, from the time that they found out about Dumbledore's child abuse and Harry started becoming famous. And then there's the Grand Unified Theory, saying that families don't have to keep apart because of silly blood laws anymore. _

She was sure that was what was happening. From the look on Draco's face, he'd decided the same thing, and he hunched over a few of the first-years like a dragon smugly brooding on eggs. Hermione was sure she detected some coolness in his manner towards the Muggleborn students, but not nearly as much as there would have been a very short time ago.

_So many things are changing, _Hermione thought in wonder. _If we survive the War, if Voldemort doesn't win, then the wizarding world is going to change _so much. _For house elves, but for Muggleborns, too. _

"Hermione?"

"Hmmm?" Hermione turned from her contemplations to find Zacharias leaning forward, his eyes fastened intently on her face.

"My mother sent me with a message for you," said Zacharias solemnly, and then drew out a wooden case from his robes and handed it over to her with a little bow. Hermione accepted it and uncapped it, rolling out the scroll that had been cooped up inside. When she studied it, she felt a sudden prickling at the back of her eyes that felt too much like tears for comfort.

_September 1st, 1997 _

_ Dear Hermione:_

_I beg you to forgive a stubborn old woman for taking too long to see the truth. I raised my son. I should have known that his choice would not alight on an unworthy partner, however surprising she was at first glance. Zacharias has told me of your courage and your determination to make a difference at Hogwarts this summer, and I have heard other tales from the wider wizarding world. The wizards and witches who join the war effort and forsake the foolish things that the Ministry asks of them are as likely to be Muggleborn as pureblood. In fact, to my shame and sorrow, they are _more _likely to be Muggleborn than pureblood, because they do not see themselves as bound to an old and outworn definition of Light._

_You are a fit partner for my son, in intelligence and in courage. If I still wish for a different family background for you, it must come from my own personal dreams for Zacharias and not because of a deficiency in you. Welcome to our family, Hermione, whenever you decide to join it._

_Yours,_

_Miriam Smith._

Hermione tried to say something, and had to swallow first. "When she decides to apologize, she doesn't do it halfway, does she?" she murmured, leaning against Zacharias's chest.

"Does that mean that you accept the apology?" Zacharias asked, stroking her shoulders.

"Yes," Hermione whispered.

"Good," said Zacharias, and his voice grew pompous. "You'll need to write out the acceptance, though. That's the proper way to do such things."

Hermione punched him in the shoulder, and then turned to face the head table as McGonagall rose to her feet. Her face was stern, but she could not help sneaking glances at the Slytherin table, either, and Hermione could make out the pride and satisfaction in her eyes.

"Welcome to another year at Hogwarts, new students and old, professors and staff," said McGonagall. "We are in the middle of a war now, and that will mean some changes. For example, stronger wards than normal have been established around the House common rooms. No student in first or second year is to go anywhere alone, and there are wards denying anyone but a few select people access to the Forbidden Forest." Her gaze touched Harry, then, and not by accident, Hermione thought. "In addition, defensive techniques will be taught in most classes, not simply Defense Against the Dark Arts, and all students are encouraged to learn the school's geography as soon as possible."

She leaned forward and put her hands on the table, drawing all attention irrevocably to her.

"We will win this war," she said. "And not solely for the sake of what will happen should we not. Because we must not allow fear to control our lives." She drew back and revealed that her wand had been lying under her palm. "_Animales advoco!_"

A stream of colored sparks sped out across the hall, touching the walls and rebounding from them, crisscrossing in midair and falling back together. Hermione gasped as she saw them forming into the shape of four beasts: a lion and badger walking side by side, a snake coiling around their feet and rearing upwards, an eagle descending from above to meet them. When they met, they opened their mouths and uttered a soundless cry before bleeding back into a storm of sparks that raced to the torches lighting the Great Hall and made them flare wildly.

"This war shall not strip our lives from us," said Headmistress McGonagall, her eyes narrow and her face shining with readiness to meet battle. At that moment, Hermione would have followed her into that battle. "Neither the more complex pleasures of House unity, nor—" she smiled "—the simpler ones of eating." She raised one hand, and the plates filled with food.

Hermione set about Transfiguring her own, noticing that Connor and Parvati, and, of course, Harry, were doing the same thing. Draco gave Harry's conjured food a few thoughtful glances, chewing solemnly on his, but didn't yet offer to forsake the services of house elves.

Hermione actually had to take a few calming breaths before she could eat. The excitement was twisting her stomach into a knot.

_We're going to live. We're going to fight on a basis that Voldemort can't even comprehend. _

_And we're going to win. _


	38. Intermission: In the Shadow of His Power

Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter!

**Intermission: In the Shadow of His Power**

"And what is your main conclusion from your visit?"

"Acting Minister Juniper is an idiot."

Monika had long since learned to control her face. She was often grateful for that skill, but this was one of the most violent bouts of gratitude she'd had in some time. Otherwise, she would have laughed at Evamaria's statement, and that would not have suited the grave image she needed to present.

As it was, she inclined her head slowly, and did not even shift the position of the one hand that rested on the table in the Minister's office. Evamaria stood at the window with her back to the Dark Lady, examining the enchanted view of dark forests and a glacier-fed lake. Only a slight tension in her shoulders showed how nervous Monika's magic made her. Evamaria made Monika more content than any of her servants had in some time. She struck the right balance between serving their country abroad and being Monika's servant at home.

"He is, my Lady." Evamaria turned around and shook her head. Her neck looked slender enough to snap like a twig, but Monika knew many people who had thought that about dear Evamaria. They'd been roundly disabused of what they should already have known, every one, when they tangled with her. It sounded as though Juniper had allowed himself to be taken in completely, however. "He treated me like a child when I questioned him. He claims to want the International Confederation's help to protect his country from the discovery of Muggles, but he rejects the most common-sense measures, such as to concentrate on the largest disruptions and leave the small ones alone, or work with the Muggle government to provide what plausible excuses they can for some breaches in the wall. He wants nothing less than complete Obliviation of _all_ Muggles who have seen something suspicious in the last few months." Evamaria let out an exasperated breath and writhed her fingers into a knot, then rested the knot on the back of her neck. "All or nothing. And he wants the same thing of Harry."

Monika nodded. In truth, she was more interested in what Evamaria would say of Harry than of the Acting Minister. But she had not sent her servant to Britain with only that purpose—Evamaria might mistake her Lady's interest for fear—so she could not look more excited about one piece of news than the other. "And what is your impression of Harry _vates_?"

"I did not meet him, of course." Evamaria shifted restlessly, as if that were a failure on her part. Monika understood that the Acting Minister's invited friend would hardly have been welcome at Hogwarts, though, and nodded her understanding. When her servants made their best effort, she could forgive them their shortcomings. "But from the impression I had of him through the Acting Minister, he is a competent, powerful wizard hampered more by others' perceptions of him and the Dark Lord's personal enmity than by his age or the difficulties Juniper wanted to ascribe to him. I am sure he has faults. I could not come at them based on what his enemies said about him, however."

Monika nodded again. That was not truly unusual for a Lord or Lady. Those who had never met her said very contradictory things of her, too.

But what did it mean?

She knew what it meant for her own purposes, and that was really all that mattered.

"Thank you, Evamaria," she said, rising to her feet. "I will contact you again when I need you."

Evamaria bowed deeply as she Apparated away from the room. The Ministers of Austria had not always been such good friends to Monika, but she had taught the ones who were not, often removing them from office. Evamaria took her natural submission to Monika's power in good part.

Monika reappeared next to her home, and held up a hand as the _avis-serpens_ came coiling down to her. She had not decided how many legs it should have yet, two like its bird parent or none like its snake parent, and so for the moment, it had one as a compromise. It perched on her wrist, shifting awkwardly back and forth, using the tail to compensate for its balance.

She stroked the sharp scale-feathers, and smiled into the distance.

_There is a young Lord, heir to the most powerful wizard in the world, battling foes on all sides. He will survive, according to the prophecy, and inherit that power. But he will be reeling, off-guard after such a large battle, and he will receive no legal protection from his own Ministry than might make a case of interference problematic._

_I will wait until after that battle, and claim the magic that no child should be carrying then._

That decided, she went to check on the progress of the mating she'd arranged that morning, between one of her tentacled sheep and dear Liane's sister. Liane had failed her most spectacularly, and such things had to be punished.

SSSSSSSSSSS

Indigena did not recognize the pattern sketched on the floor.

She recognized the material it was made of, of course. Since the failed attempt to kill Remus Lupin, her Lord seemed to be obsessed with growing ever stronger. He had sent Sylvan and Oaken to capture what straying wizards they could, and a few other Death Eaters who had more knowledge of the Muggle world to snare those Muggleborn children too young to be missed. They were brought back to him. Voldemort drained their magic, and his power grew stronger still, a brooding shadow that spread around him like a pair of constantly-flared eagles' wings.

Then they were left with the bodies of the new Squibs. Voldemort gave them to Sylvan and Oaken, with very specific instructions. And the bodies came back out as rendered flesh and blood, poured as thick liquid into the design that Voldemort wanted, and then dried and frozen and enchanted to stay in place. The victims' own pain and suffering probably also helped with that, Indigena thought. Though willing sacrifice was stronger, even unwilling sacrifice—blood magic—had power.

The design was not yet complete, but its outer form was a huge circle. In the middle, innumerable knots and stars and lines crossed to form a pattern that Indigena could not penetrate or understand. Sometimes she saw darting shapes in it, a bird, a lizard, a snake, but those were more likely her eyes trying to make sense of the changeable, she thought, like the shapes one saw when peering into a fire.

So her Lord's ultimate purpose, other than gaining more magic, remained mysterious, but this evening Indigena had noticed a new thing. As her Lord stood in front of the pattern, something joined him.

It was a glint, a glimmer of shadow at first. Then it resolved, and Indigena made out a black stone woman carrying her head under her arm. The head writhed with snakes. Indigena quickly looked aside, making sure not to meet that head's eyes.

Of course, more dangerous than the possible Medusa magic of that head was the sense of might that lurked around it. And by the chaos that accompanied it, clawing at the burrow walls and making streams of dirt fall from them, Indigena knew what this creature of Dark magic really was: a cover for the wild Dark.

It walked around the pattern with Voldemort, and, when it reached a certain point in the outer ring that corresponded to a blank place in the center, it vanished. Her Lord gave no sign that he had noticed.

Indigena bowed her head. _If he is calling upon the wild Dark, and draining magic at the same time, what can he be planning?_

She decided that he was unlikely to tell her if he had not so far, and in any case, it was not her task to prevent that. Her eyes focused across the room, where Sylvan and Oaken were dragging in another victim.

_There is my task._

She turned and left the burrow. Her Lord had gone deep into contemplation, and was unlikely to call her back. She mounted the steps to the surface, and then cast a complicated spell on one of the stones in the tumble-down wall also woven with anti-Apparition spells and dense wards.

Little by little, she was altering the stone to have a heartbeat, and sing. It caused an immense amount of magic to leak above the wards, if one knew what to look for. Indigena had chosen it as the spell most likely to work as a summons and not attract attention. If her Lord asked, Indigena knew at least two uses the spell could be put to on prisoners, and could say she was practicing for those, trying to get over her squeamishness about torture.

But its main purpose was as a call.

And, tonight, it finally worked.

Indigena caught a glimpse of movement that resembled the wild Dark's, and looked up at once. Evan Rosier stood not far beyond the wall, staring at her, clutching the Hufflepuff cup in one hand.

Indigena cocked an eyebrow and murmured. At Evan's feet, a tendril rose, uncurled, and laid a message at his boots.

Now it remained to be seen if he would read it or not.

But Indigena could not stay to see. Her Mark was burning. She turned and went below.


	39. Look to the Future

Warning: Slash in the first scene, if you want to skip that.

**Chapter Twenty-Nine: Look to the Future**

Harry slid carefully into the room. There was always the chance that Draco would notice him, of course, and—

"_Expelliarmus!_"

And he had noticed Harry _much more quickly_ than he had last time. Harry ducked, spinning to the floor. He was impressed. It really wasn't Draco's fault that that spell didn't work against him, since he didn't use a wand much anymore. It would have worked on a Death Eater who thought that Draco was thoroughly distracted casting against the wooden, wizard-shaped target on the far side of the dueling room.

Draco snorted when he saw it was Harry, but didn't let up on the curses he was casting. "_Dolor immoderatus! Aere alieno demersus! Caligo auriculam!_"

Harry dodged, in order, a pain curse, a hex that would transfer any life debt he owed another wizard to Draco, and one that would unbalance him by causing intense dizziness in his inner ear. He couldn't catch his breath, but what little he could spare was given to laughter. Draco was _wonderful._

"Hold still, will you?" Draco muttered, and paused a moment to catch his breath.

Harry raised an eyebrow and made him pay for that, hauling him into the air by one heel with _Levicorpus. _Unlike last time, however, Draco remained calm, and cast _Finite Incantatem_, even though that came near dropping him on his head. He let out a little _oomph_ as his shoulders were bruised.

Harry didn't know how he got a grip on his wand, rolling on the floor like that, but it was obvious he'd used a non-verbal spell when Harry felt a tightness like a vine growing along and up his legs. He concentrated, willing the vine to wither away from him and collapse to the floor, and then Draco cast the Ear-Dazzle Curse again and made him reel, crashing down.

"In a real battle, you would have been dead," Draco gloated from somewhere above him.

"Not dead, but inconvenienced," Harry muttered, and did what he should have done in the first place, casting a nonverbal _Finite Incantatem_ to end both spells. He smiled at Draco. "I got caught up in finishing them in some flashy way, and allowed you to get a hit in. Well done."

Draco's chest was moving fast, and his eyes practically sparked with passion. Harry wasn't surprised when he leaned forward and took his mouth in a hungry kiss. He returned it for a moment, then drew back with a shake of his head.

"I came to test you, yes, but also to fetch you for dinner—" he began.

Draco, who was kneeling down in front of him, didn't seem inclined to listen. His half-smile wasn't an expression Harry had seen before. He unbuckled Harry's trousers without listening to him.

"Draco?"

"Were you saying something?" Draco braced his legs on the floor and kicked hard, and Harry found himself on his back with Draco on top of him. "Was it important?" Draco added, and then lowered his head towards that horrible, evil spot on the side of Harry's neck.

"Draco Malfoy, you had better not bite—"

Draco didn't listen to him, and did. Harry arched his neck, panting. The unlocked door and dinner not far away were thoughts drifting somewhere in the back of his mind, but they couldn't make it to the front, not when Draco was rather insistently dragging his trousers off and reaching into his pants.

"Defeating me excites you?" Harry managed to mutter.

"_Excitement_ excites me," Draco corrected, and then bent down and took Harry's cock in his mouth.

Harry started; even with the bite on his neck and Draco's obvious intentions, he had anticipated a little more foreplay. But the warmth and the wetness and the way Draco sucked at him wildly, fiercely, the same way he had gone into battle, melted his objections soon enough.

He tired to protest, which was the valiant thing to do. Someone could come in at any moment. They really needed to eat, and then go back to their bedroom, and then he needed to research the Horcruxes some more, because he didn't think they could put off going after the ring for much longer—

And then Draco's tongue curled in a way that made shivers run through his body, and brought currents of laughter streaming up from his soul. Harry felt the same giddy excitement grip his mind that usually took over for him during sex. He kept his hips on the floor by main force of effort.

"Come on, Harry," Draco muttered, and somehow breathed out air and sucked inward at the same time.

Harry knew what Draco was asking for—for him to stop holding back, and let his body do what it wanted—and hesitated only a moment longer before giving in. His hips bucked a few more times, and Harry didn't try to keep them still. He felt the pleasure rushing through his body, building far too quickly for most of their encounters, but this was spontaneous and unplanned, and that was the point.

And then it felt too good, and he _couldn't_, and he came with an embarrassing combination of grunt and sigh. He could feel Draco's smugness radiating off him like summer sunlight.

Draco pulled away a moment later, and cast a locking spell in the direction of the door. He then took off his shirt, never removing his eyes from Harry's face.

Harry smiled and lunged up, kissing him fiercely. _Dinner can wait._

SSSSSSSSSS

"Harry, if you would come with me, please."

Harry stopped in surprise as McGonagall gave him the invitation. She never looked at him as she swept past, her robes billowing behind her, and kept walking as if she expected him to follow her to her office. Harry glanced at Draco, whose face simply firmed with determination to come with him in turn.

Harry shrugged, and trailed McGonagall to the gargoyle. When the Headmistress turned and saw Draco with him, she paused, but then tilted her chin down and murmured something that sounded like, "In any discussion that concerns your future, I suppose Mr. Malfoy has a right to be present."

_Has she decided against continuing her support of me? _The pressure from the Ministry and parents might have become too much, Harry thought, and squared his shoulders. It would be hard to be deprived of the protection of Hogwarts, but he could make Silver-Mirror his stronghold if he must. He _was_ sure that McGonagall would never turn out the students and the refugees who had come to her, no matter what she might have to do to Harry.

They reached the office, and McGonagall sat behind the desk, with one glance at the Sword of Gryffindor. Harry took one of the chairs in front of the desk, giving a substantial glare of his own at the Horcrux. He still did not know whom they would find to walk onto the sword.

_Besides me._

Harry knew he had the will and the courage to do such a thing, if worst came to worst. He didn't _want_ to, and at the moment it seemed unlikely he would be the sacrifice, because he was needed to fight the shards of soul and drain the magic of the other Horcruxes. But he could do it if he needed to.

"Harry."

He paid attention to McGonagall, who had a sheaf of paper in her hands and her glasses pushed up on her nose. She studied the parchment in front of her for a moment, then directed his attention to him.

"Have you thought about what you're going to do after Hogwarts?" she asked briskly.

Harry felt his mouth sag open. "What?" he asked.

Draco nudged him with an elbow. "She's asking what you want to do after the war, idiot," he said.

"I _know_ that," said Harry, though he wasn't sure he had; his mind was still too blank with surprise to make up a good excuse. "I just—you know what it's going to be like, Madam. Working as a _vates._ Trying to repair the ravages that I'm sure this war will inflict on Britain, and the ravages it's already inflicted. Making peace with the Ministry, and the new Minister I hope is in place after Juniper. What else would it be like?"

"In truth, Harry, I did not wish to see you confined." McGonagall laid down the parchment and leaned forward. "If that is truly what you want to spend the rest of your life doing, I honor you. But is it? Are there other ambitions that you would like to achieve, and what are they? I feel that I may be able to give you some advice on those."

Draco's arm hooked around his waist. "He'll be living with me, of course," he said. "I always intend to be part of Harry's life."

Harry felt his face flush. Expressing physical affection like this was one thing in private, or in front of someone who knew all about it already, like Snape. But Draco's reply to the Headmistress could be seen as cheek.

McGonagall didn't appear to have taken it as that, this time. She simply nodded. "That is quite clear by now, Mr. Malfoy," she murmured. "If I am not mistaken, your seventh joining ritual will occur on Halloween, and after that, no one else can intervene to court one of you, or part you."

"The magic will make them sorry if they do." Draco was smirking fit to tear the world apart.

Harry felt his flush deepen. _Does everyone have to know all these details about us? _But he said, "Of course I'll be living with Draco. But—there's nothing else I want, Madam. Nothing else I can think of. I appreciate your talking to me about this, but I already know what the rest of my life is going to be like." He still couldn't quite contain his bewilderment. Why wouldn't Snape have been the one to say these things, if anyone was going to? And was McGonagall seriously suggesting that he could simply settle into a quiet job somewhere in England and live that way? It was ridiculous. His magic would always mark him out, and so would his compulsion to help other people as long as he could. Harry hoped that need would continue to exist for a good portion of time after his battle with Voldemort.

McGonagall smiled at him as if he had said something at once wise and amusing. "No one knows what the rest of her life is going to be like, Harry. Do not dismiss some other choices so quickly." She pushed the parchment she'd been holding across the desk to him. "This is a list of requirements for becoming an Auror—or a spell inventor—in other countries, as well as some other careers that require both immense magic and a flexible mind. If any of them strike your fancy, Harry, do let me know, and I can procure you more information on them."

Harry slowly took the list. _This is so strange. I'll be grateful just to survive the war, and she wants me to be—what?_

"Why, Madam?" he asked quietly, eyes on her.

"I wanted to be sure that you were looking to the future and thinking about surviving it," said McGonagall serenely. "It seems that you are. And if you do change your mind, or wish to know what else you can be beyond a _vates_, there is the list." She nodded to it. "Do not be mistaken, Harry. What you are, what you plan to be, is wonderful. But chaining yourself to one duty for the rest of your life is problematic, a reflection of what your parents tried to persuade you into when they trained you to serve Connor. I would not see that happen again."

"It won't," said Draco, his voice strong as a windstorm. "I promise, Headmistress."

"I am glad that he has you, Mr. Malfoy," said McGonagall—McGonagall, who usually showed distaste or dislike for Draco.

Harry let himself be pulled into a hug from Draco, but his surprise still soaked him so much that he couldn't truly respond. _What is going on? Did everyone decide to play a grand joke, and no one told me? _

_I just—I would expect concern like this from Snape or Regulus or even Peter, but not McGonagall. She didn't need to._

"Thank you, Madam," he said, because there didn't seem to be anything else to say, and left the office in a daze of confusion. Draco had to steady him so that he didn't take a headlong dive down the moving staircase. He was busy trying to figure out why McGonagall would care, would make such an effort.

_Isn't what I'm going to become obvious, an extension of what I already am?_

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Connor gave the door to the Slytherin common room the password that Harry had told him yesterday, and ignored the shocked glances of several people inside when he stepped through. He had the Marauder's Map firmly in hand. While some of the secret passages on it were unusable—too dangerous, or too far from the House common rooms—others would serve well as escape tunnels from the school, should they ever need them.

He paused when he reached the door of the bedroom Draco and Harry shared. For one thing, the handle glimmered with a powerful locking spell. For another, there were loud, if muffled, moans coming from inside.

_Hmmm._ Connor doubted he would have time to come back later, since his Defense Against the Dark Arts homework was already enough to keep him occupied half the night. Besides, the looks on the Slytherins' faces made him think that they'd probably change the password after he left. And, finally, he wanted to see his brother. He hadn't had the chance to talk to him in several days.

He pulled out his wand and murmured a _Finite_, though he had to repeat it several times before the charm sparked and faded into nothingness. Connor smiled triumphantly. It was Draco's spell, then, and not Harry's, or he doubted he could get through it.

He opened the door, one hand in front of his eyes, and called out, "Shield yourselves! There are some things I _don't_ want to see."

He heard two yelps, or perhaps it was one yelp and one grunt as someone got kicked in a sensitive place. Connor grinned behind his hand, and waited until the sounds of scrambling and rustling cloth stopped.

"_Potter_," said Draco, in a tone of high disgust.

"Malfoy," Connor retorted, lowering his hand. To his relief, Harry was dressed, and trying to lean casually against the bed while very red in the face. Draco lay under the sheets. Connor didn't know, and didn't care to, how naked he was under them. "Harry, I wanted to talk to you about the tunnels that we discussed, the ones that will be necessary if Voldemort ever attacks the school."

Harry's face cleared, and he nodded. "Do you mind, Draco?' he murmured.

"It doesn't really matter if I do or not, does it?" Draco muttered, burying his head beneath the blankets. "The mood's entirely _broken_, and you're about to run away with your brother anyway. I know that look."

"Don't pout," said Harry, with crispness Connor couldn't have imagined hearing from him a year ago, and kissed Draco on the cheek. "Go to sleep, if you want, or start on the Defense homework. I'll be back shortly."

Draco sulked, and gave Connor a decidedly evil look behind Harry's back as Harry crossed to the door. Connor pondered sticking out his tongue.

"Stop glaring at him, Draco," Harry said, without turning around. "And leave him alone, Connor." Gently, he shut the bedroom door behind them, and then shook his head. "You're just lucky that he's had one orgasm today already, or he would have cursed you," he said.

Connor felt his face turn red. "I didn't need to know that, Harry."

"Remember that the next time you burst in on us." Harry folded his arms. "Now, was the map just an excuse?"

"I need an excuse to spend time with you?" Connor clenched his hand on the map, interested in Harry's answer.

Harry blinked, and then his expression softened. "Of course not, Connor. But it also doesn't seem that urgent that you'd come bursting through the locking spell when you knew what had to be happening behind it."

"I think they might change the password on me," Connor said, with a glance over his shoulder at the Slytherin common room. "Besides, I already made the trek down to the dungeons." He gave his brother a winsome smile. "And I promise, I did want to spend time with you."

Harry smiled, and sat down on the top stair before the bedroom door, taking the Map. "Which tunnels were you thinking of using?"

"Not the one behind the statue of the humpbacked witch," said Connor at once. He'd spent a few days studying the Map, now, and felt himself rather an expert on it. "It goes out into Hogsmeade, and that would be as dangerous as Hogwarts if Voldemort was attacking, probably. And not the one on the second floor that winds up behind Hagrid's hut, for the same reason."

"I hear tunnels we can't use, not ones we can." Harry rustled the Map impatiently, watching as numerous tiny dots moved back and forth. Connor, looking down, accidentally caught a glimpse of two dots called _Zacharias_ and _Hermione_ moving towards the Hufflepuff common room. He looked away hastily.

"That's why I figured out these tunnels," he said, and then flicked his fingers over the Map, touching five of them. One each was located in Gryffindor and Ravenclaw Towers, one near Hufflepuff, and two under Slytherin. "They're not often used, because there are much shorter routes out onto the grounds. I don't think even the Marauders went into them more than once or twice. And of course they wouldn't want to walk all the way down from Gryffindor Tower only to go under the Slytherin dungeons and _then_ find their way out in the opposite direction of the Forbidden Forest."

Harry frowned. Connor suspected that was because the tunnels ran beyond the limits of the Map, and he couldn't see where they went. "What is their destination?"

"Parvati sent a conjured light of hers to find out," said Connor. "And—well, it's not nearby, we know that much." He pulled out a Pensieve from his robe pocket and tapped it so that it came back to normal size. A single memory shimmered in the bottom, a dollop of silvery liquid. "This is what the light showed to her, and then she put the memory in here."

Harry bent and put his head into the memory, and Connor followed, even though he'd already seen it. It was an incredible journey, he had to admit that much, and he didn't think that wanting to see it again was a crime.

The ball of conjured light hovered next to the hidden entrance to the tunnel in Gryffindor Tower, a small crack between the stones. When Parvati's hand came briefly into sight and tugged at the crack, the wall opened. The light darted through and danced up and down for a moment, to show that the room just beyond the door was still big enough for a human.

Then it flew.

Connor kept down a whoop with an effort. This was rather like swooping on a Firebolt along a dizzying maze of tunnels, down and over and around. Sometimes the light took stairs, but not often. For the most part, the tunnel simply led steadily down, looping through the thick stone walls of the castle, and only once crossing with another—the corridor that led from Ravenclaw Tower.

Deeper and deeper they dived, and then the ball of light emerged into a dungeon corridor. Harry made a startled little noise. "I never knew there was an entrance to a tunnel there," he whispered.

"Not many people did," Connor said. "Now watch. This is the most vulnerable part of the journey, I think, because we'd have to cross from one tunnel to another, and emerge into full sight, which is a problem if there are Death Eaters running around the school."

The light sped fleetly across the floor and to another tiny crack in the stones. Connor knew the crack could tug open to become a door the same way that the original one had. He wondered if it was a coincidence, or maybe a good omen, that the holes were both shaped like lightning bolts if he squinted.

Down and over and around again, but this time the tunnel was damper and dived even more deeply than before, over stones that gleamed with wetness and thick burrows of mingled rock and earth that reminded Connor of ancient wizards' dwellings he'd seen in his History of Magic textbook. At times the ceiling dropped alarmingly low, but there was always room to crawl. Connor didn't look forward to having to urge claustrophobic people through those places if they ever used this as an escape route, though.

Then the sight of the tunnel gave way to a waterfall, a place where the lake had broken through the ceiling.

Harry started. "How are we supposed to pass that?" he demanded.

"It's an illusion," said Connor, smiling fondly as Parvati's ball of light shot through the curtain of water, sending small drops scattering out to spray behind it. For a moment, blue and light closed them round, and then they were out on the other side, in a tunnel that, if not perfectly dry, was at least no more wet than before. "Think about it, Harry. If there was a breach that large in Hogwarts's foundations, the school would have suffered trouble before now, wouldn't it?"

Harry nodded reluctantly. Then he leaned forward as the ball of light sank into a pit. "Is there a ladder?"

"On the wall." Connor pointed to the side of the memory, almost behind their heads, where the ball's gleams showed glimpses of crude handholds carved into the stone long before.

Harry remained tense and silent, watching, as the pit expanded into another tunnel, and then an almost perfect ramp straight up. Soon it acquired the tendrils of climbing vines, and ducked past a massive influx of roots, and washed up into darkness and cold air.

"Where—"

"Beyond the Forbidden Forest," Connor said. "And Hogwarts's anti-Apparition wards, too. If we ever need to escape that way, we can Apparate to the safehouses once we're out of it."

Harry shook his head in wonder. Then his face hardened. "That kind of territory is natural habitat for Indigena's more dangerous plants," he muttered. "I'll ask Neville to plant those lilies he's been developing along the tunnel, so that if she tries to strike at us while we're running, she can be turned."

"And you'll fill the corridor with traps and tricks?" Connor asked hopefully. This was the part he wanted to help with. Since it seemed disloyal to play pranks on anyone in the school anymore, he wanted to play them on the Death Eaters. He was sure the Weasley twins would also be glad to help.

"Of course," said Harry. "But they'll have to be calculated so that they won't hinder our escape."

Connor grinned. "For one thing," he said, as they tugged their heads out of the silvery liquid, because the memory had ended save for the light's flight back to Hogwarts, "we could have traps armed mostly to allow the passage of a large group of people, and then strike after a certain period of time at anyone who came after them. And I'm sure Fred and George can work with time-delayed charms and the direction of the tunnel and the House crests on Hogwarts robes."

He reveled in the grateful look Harry gave him. It did seem that he had little enough time to spend with his brother after their parents' funeral, even though he saw Harry at least once every few days, and more often than that now that classes had started again.

For a moment, Connor contemplated the fact that if their lives were different, they'd be worried mostly about NEWTs this year, and House rivalry, and Quidditch, and woes with their girlfriend and boyfriend. It sounded like a prosaic set of worries, and, in certain lights, Connor supposed, attractive.

But everything would have to be different for that to happen. Neither of them could be the Boy-Who-Lived. Harry couldn't be as powerful as he was magically. Voldemort would have to be dead already, because Connor was quite sure that they wouldn't be able to leave the war up to Neville or whoever else might be destined to defeat him. This was everyone's war, and as long as it existed, those ordinary teenage concerns were a long way from his mind, and Harry's.

Connor wouldn't have it any other way, though. Perhaps it was the Gryffindor in him. Perhaps, after thinking he was the Boy-Who-Lived for twelve years, he craved having attention focused on him. Perhaps he simply hated the idea of anything being ordinary for long. But he wanted to fight as much as he wanted to play pranks, and he wanted to be helping Harry when he could.

"I'm sure Fred and George _can_ think of other things," Harry said, drawing Connor's attention back to their conversation. "But I can't, not right now. I'll speak to Neville and examine the tunnel tomorrow." He folded the Map and passed it back to Connor. "Don't worry about anyone changing the password. If they do, I'll just give you the new one—though I'm sure you could use your Gryffindor deviousness to lurk around until you hear it." He gave Connor a smile to let him know he was teasing. "Don't undo any locking spells on our door anymore, though."

Connor wasn't sure what made him regard his brother thoughtfully instead of simply accepting the Map and bouncing off. But he did, and he did ask the question that had started weighing, quietly, on him all throughout August. "Harry?"

"Hmmm?" About to open his bedroom door again, Harry paused and looked back at him.

"Why didn't you come and talk to me about what you felt when Lily and James died?" No dancing around the subject and beating about the bush for him, Connor had already decided. He was a Gryffindor. He could be as blunt and honest as he wanted, and that was only what people would expect of him.

Harry froze, and the cheerfulness died out of his face. Then he shook his head once. "Because you needed comfort then," he said. "Obviously. And I felt as though you were my only family member left. I wanted to protect you, not burden you."

"I _am_ your only blood family left." Connor leaned forward. "And once I started recovering and stopped hating myself for my grief over them? Then why didn't you come and talk to me, Harry?"

"August was rather busy," said Harry dryly.

"Would you ever have?"

"No." Harry's mouth tightened.

"Why not?"

"I didn't want to."

"Why not?"

Harry looked away from him. "Because it was _mine_," he said lowly. "I just—I still haven't told Draco and Snape in detail, because I don't want them to judge me for the grief I displayed."

Connor made an exasperated noise, and kept himself from throwing up his hands only because he knew that someone from the Slytherin common room might be watching them. "And that was _exactly_ why you comforted me, Harry, because I hated my grief and you had to tell me that it was all right for me to feel it. Why didn't you let me comfort you and tell you the same thing?"

"I had other things to do," said Harry, shifting restlessly. "The funeral to arrange. People to contact. Condolences to express for those other people who lost family members in the attack."

Connor stood and came up behind him. Harry turned to face him rather than let Connor approach his back, his arms folded and his face set and his eyes cold. He _did_ do forbidding well, Connor thought.

But he didn't try words to break through that mask, because it was obvious that wouldn't work. He put his arms around Harry and hugged him instead. Harry only stood there, as if the embrace meant nothing to him, but Connor could feel the wary shifting in his muscles, and knew it took his brother a good deal of effort to keep from simply bolting back into the bedroom.

"I'm your brother, too," Connor murmured into his ear. "I know that you're my elder brother and my guardian and the tower of strength for me when I need you to be, Harry, but—I'm _also_ your brother, you know? I can return the favor. It's a relationship between two of us, not just you doing things for me. I know Snape and Draco have finally managed to convince you to have a relationship like that with them, mostly. I want one like that with you, too."

"I assume you don't want the potions-brewing part of the one or the sexual part of the other," Harry muttered.

Connor burst out laughing before he could help himself, even though he recognized this as another tactic that Harry used to keep people from prying. "No," he said, when he calmed down. "But I want to talk to you more often than I do, and not just about me or about defensive techniques either, Harry. I know you might not do it right away, but I'm still here, and I'll talk to you sometimes."

He gave him one more squeeze, then broke away and walked back towards the door out of the Slytherin common room.

Harry could be as distant and resentful as he liked. It didn't matter. Connor would always be there to open the doors he kept himself behind, locking spells or not.

_Though I sincerely hope not many sights as traumatic as Draco and him shagging are behind those doors._


	40. A Nasty Surprise

**Chapter Thirty: A Nasty Surprise**

Harry stared at the ceiling of their bed, stroking Draco's back as he waited for him to wake up. It had become his habit to do this in the past few days. There was no other time when he could guarantee that he would think uninterrupted, even by such welcome interruptions as a kiss or a question from one of the younger Slytherin students about what it had been like to live in the House when he first came to Hogwarts.

He didn't know the cause of Voldemort's silence in the last half a month. He had been too grateful for the rest to question it at first; besides, he'd been sure that an attack would come at any moment. But now he feared it meant only that he was preparing some great, savage strike.

_Before he can do that, we need to destroy a Horcrux._

Harry stirred restlessly, and then lay still again when Draco murmured. He drifted near the surface of sleep now, but he didn't need to wake yet, and Harry wanted him to remain quiet for as long as he could. He'd been exhausting himself with training lately. He deserved all the rest he could get.

_Nothing will really incapacitate Voldemort but destroying the Horcruxes. I know that. I can do all the defensive planning that I want, or even all the offensive planning, if I could locate him and his Death Eaters, and yet that won't make him die or stop coming until the Horcruxes are destroyed. I have to._

_I still haven't found a way around the Unassailable Curse. I don't think that Thomas and Jing-Xi will find a way around the one on the Sword, either. _They still hadn't managed to identify the spells that Voldemort had used by name, though they had found ones that did similar things. _And so, no matter how much I hate the thought of someone dying for me, or in my name, I have to face that it's going to happen._

Harry closed his eyes. Draco had stirred towards wakefulness again as he felt Harry shaking, but only uttered a sleepy little murmur and burrowed into his chest. Harry looked down at him and stroked his fingers through soft blond hair, his mind a torrent of conflicting emotions.

He didn't want to cry, though, not unless he was so deeply alone that he knew no one would intrude. So he forced the tears down and made himself smile in case Draco's eyes chose that moment to flutter open.

_I want to live. And Merlin knows that Draco wants me to live. He would probably say it was selfish to want to die, in fact, when I have so many commitments that require me to live._

_But it's also selfish to ask my allies to do things that I won't do. How can I ask someone else to destroy the Horcruxes through the willing sacrifice of life unless I'm willing to die myself?_

_But I can't kill myself, because I need to be alive to insure that all the magic and the pieces of soul from the Horcruxes are destroyed._

_But it's still a price that I should be willing to pay._

His hand must have stroked a little too hard, because Draco suddenly looked up at him. "Harry? What's wrong?" His voice was still thick with sleep.

"Nothing," Harry lied easily, raising the cheerful mask that had become second nature to him in the last few days, as his worry over Voldemort's inexplicable quietude grew stronger and stronger. Everyone else appeared to value the gap between attacks, and he should, too. If nothing else, it meant less death. "Are you almost ready to go to breakfast?"

"Hm. Have to?"

"No. A few more minutes yet."

"Give me them." One of Draco's arms, which had been curled across his chest, shifted and wrapped around Harry. "Want to have as much as I can," he muttered.

"Typical selfish Slytherin," Harry whispered into his neck, but the emotion tightening his heart was anything but irritation. _He deserves to have as much as he can. Everyone does, but especially Draco—of life, of love, of magic, of time to lie in bed in the morning and wallow in warmth. _

_I don't know what I can do to both give him that and give our world the safety it needs, though._

SSSSSSSSSS

Draco slowly leaned towards Harry. If he did it too suddenly, then Harry would notice and cover up the sheet of parchment he'd been scribbling on. Whatever it was, it wasn't Arithmancy equations. Harry had never been that urgent in Arithmancy, an art that usually required more concentration than he could give it and a way of thinking in numbers that Harry hated on instinct.

He caught a glimpse of the word _ring_ before Professor Vector swirled past with a murmur of, "Attend to your own paper please, Mr. Malfoy."

Draco sat back and paid attention to his paper, but now he thought he knew what Harry was writing. It would be a list of the remaining Horcruxes, and the costs of destroying them.

Draco could feel his stomach brewing like an anxious potion. He'd _known_ that Harry had something on his mind when he woke that morning, but it seemed best to let it go when Harry denied it. Draco was trying to be open, to show Harry that he could trust him while not _pushing_ him to do so.

This, though, was too serious to be left alone. If Harry was even thinking about going after the Horcruxes without help, then he needed to be confronted and talked out of that rabidly stupid idea.

Accordingly, Draco snared his bag with one hand after class as Harry distractedly shoved his books into it. "Harry?" he whispered. "Walk with me towards Ancient Runes?"

Harry nodded agreeably. Draco suspected he knew way. They would pass the library on the way to that class, and Harry could easily double back and towards research he had probably convinced himself he needed, or to visit Rhangnara and Jing-Xi.

They passed out of the usual flood of people that emerged from the class—except among a few people, like Draco, who had a natural talent for it, Professor Vector's subject wasn't that popular, and used mostly for career advancement—and into a side corridor. Draco had chosen it on purpose, so that he could talk to Harry without being overheard.

"Is something wrong?"

Harry's eyes shone anxiously when Draco glanced sideways at him. He sighed. _I suppose I'm not the only one who can read someone and divine the secrets he's holding back. Or some of the secrets, at least._

He faced Harry and put a hand on his shoulder. "I want to know why you were writing about a ring," he said.

Harry swallowed, but didn't back down and didn't look away, to Draco's secret relief. He would have been sure that Harry already had a plan to take off on his own if he'd done either of those. "It was a list of the Horcruxes," he murmured. "Where they are, what we know about them, and what it'll take to capture them. The ring is going to be the easiest for us right now. The wand and the cup are still beyond our reach, unless someone knows an easy Rosier-attracting spell they haven't told me. And we know what it takes to remove the Sword, and it's a cost I'm unwilling to pay."

"It's a cost that you'll have to pay," Draco said, his hand cupping Harry's jaw. "You know that."

"I know!" Harry hissed, and jerked away from his touch. _When did it become more comfortable for him to avoid that? _Draco wondered, still staring into his eyes. "I know," Harry repeated more calmly, "but it's still harder to destroy the Sword than the ring. So I'll hunt the ring."

"Just you?"

Harry gave him an odd look. "Of course not. I wouldn't go in without protection, especially considering that my blood is needed to break the Unassailable Curse guarding the ring, and I might bleed to death. I would need someone to give me a Blood-Replenishing Potion, at least, and someone to face the traps in the house with me, and people to guard my back."

Draco relaxed. At least Harry's madness hadn't taken the track of convincing him he needed to act by himself.

"I'm here, Harry," he said, daring to duck his head and rub his cheek against Harry's, since they were alone. Predictably, Harry tensed up and took a tiny step back from him. Draco hid his sadness with a slight smile. "And I'm sure that your sworn companions would be more than happy to back you up, and of course Professor Snape won't let you go anywhere without him, and Rhangnara and Jing-Xi should be there, since they're practically Horcrux experts by now."

Harry nodded. "I was thinking of asking all of you to come with me. Perhaps also Regulus, since, after all, he does have the most direct experience of Horcruxes, and he might be able to note a sign that we'd all miss."

"Good," said Draco. "This weekend, then?" It was the earliest time they could reasonably get away, unless they wanted to stop attending class, and it didn't seem that Harry did. He was determined to keep one part of his life ordinary, and Draco had encouraged that, fearing he would get lost in esoterica otherwise.

"Yes." Harry nodded again, with a faint smile. "Thank you, Draco."

Draco followed him down the hall, smile plastered on, heart aching. They separated near the library, now that Harry was no longer pretending what he was studying. Harry gave him another nod that seemed to confirm that, yes, they _would_ go to the Gaunt shack this weekend, and he would make all the necessary arrangements.

Draco watched him go in silence. He had appreciated that Harry would need some time to come to terms with his grief for his parents, and with the inner darkness he'd inadvertently shown Draco the night Medusa and Eos died, and with the trauma of those deaths, and with the knowledge about the Horcruxes. He had thought Harry would start trusting him again, start confiding in him, soon.

And now it seemed as if Harry were not only not doing that, he'd started to hide other things, things that didn't need to be hidden.

And Draco had no idea how to stop it.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

"Sit down, Harry." Jing-Xi gave him a bright smile and turned back to the stack of parchment in front of her, which bore magical terms Harry didn't even know the meaning of. "Thomas and I were just speaking of what the best method would be to approach the ring, now that we know what guards it."

Harry let out a little breath of relief and sat down. He had been afraid, at first, that Jing-Xi would try to talk him out of going, but she spoke as if she had always known that he would approach her and ask her about the subject on this day. He studied the motions of her hair in the wavering currents of wind and waited until Thomas glanced up and noticed him.

His face brightened at once. Harry felt a small pulse of quiet satisfaction. Though Thomas still obviously mourned Priscilla, he was recovering much faster now that he had a project to immerse himself in.

"Harry," Thomas said. "If I'm right, then we can destroy the ring this weekend."

Harry blinked, and felt a little catch come to his throat. "You—you've found some way around the Unassailable Curse that demands a willing sacrifice?" he whispered.

"What?" Thomas frowned as if at a distant noise, then shook his head. "Oh. No." Harry swallowed. "But I can almost guarantee that your blood will break the curse that needs the blood of Slytherin to work, and once inside we can get past most defensive spells." His finger traced the edge of some writing on the parchment in front of him, and his grin had turned smug. "We found the spell Voldemort used to require sacrifices at last, you see."

Harry leaned forward. Thomas all but shoved the document into his hand, and waited impatiently while he read.

_The Chant of Sacrifice, _the elegant letters at the top said, and below that Thomas had written in a moral natural style, copying the words out.

_This Unassailable Curse will lock one's possession beyond a ward that demands a living sacrifice to break it. Nor can the sacrifice be unwilling. The blood of the dead will not work to part this curse, nor will a former death that is "dedicated" later. The sacrifice must die either for love of the person who intends to destroy the possession or believing passionately that destroying the possession is the right thing to do._

_The Chant of Sacrifice limits the defensive spells that can be used to protect the item; it is such a powerful spell that close proximity to it wears down and destroys most lesser magic. Blood-based wards are the most common, followed by other Unassailable Curses. Attempts to physically destroy the object will not succeed as long as the Chant of Sacrifice has not been undone, but, on the other hand, defensive spells that rely on common destructive techniques—fire, pain, and mental control—cannot be placed in the same room with the guarded possession. Therefore, those who use the Chant of Sacrifice are best off studying other Unassailable Curses first, or managing to hide their possessions in plain sight._

"That doesn't give him many choices, does it?" Harry said slowly, lifting his head. "Blood-based wards—but my tie to the blood of Slytherin should get us past those. And other Unassailable Curses. I suppose there could be more of them in the shack, but—"

"We won't know that there are until we reach the ring," said Jing-Xi, hair wavering around her faster than normal. Harry noted with quiet amusement that her magic had transformed the table almost entirely into a construction of amber and pearl, with here and there a gleaming rhinestone embedded in it. "And at least we know that we will not be facing compulsive wards, or guardian beasts."

"It also explains why he just left the Sword of Gryffindor hanging in plain sight," Thomas broke in. Harry thought he was physically incapable of keeping silent any longer. "We found that spell, too, by the way, a variant of the Chant of Sacrifice that can only be undone by the object piercing the victim's heart," he added as an aside, then leaped back to his original topic. "And the other Horcruxes—well, we don't know about the cup, but the wand was hidden in an obscure place where no one would think to look for it unless they knew Tom Riddle's personal history. Their best protection, though, was the fact that no one knew Voldemort had made Horcruxes at all." Thomas's teeth gleamed as he smiled. "And we took that away. We're going to destroy him, Harry. I promise we will."

_If someone dies each time._

Harry rattled the document with the information on the Chant of Sacrifice. "So you're absolutely sure that there's no way around a willing sacrificial death as a requirement for destroying each one?"

Thomas hesitated. Jing-Xi leaned forward and whispered in his ear, to which he listened, nodding. Then he faced Harry and said, "We haven't found one. And Jing-Xi wants to speak with you for a moment."

"Of course," said Harry, even as his heart began to pound. Thomas picked up a book that looked to weigh at least half as much as he did and retreated with it into the library shelves. Harry faced Jing-Xi.

He was disturbed to see a ripple of anxiety on her face. Usually, she gave the impression that she'd seen the worst the world had to throw at her before, and she could control and predict what followed. Now she regarded him with that anxiety, and with pity right above it, like light dancing on water.

"Harry," said Jing-Xi quietly. "You know that the sooner we destroy the Horcruxes, the sooner we can win the war."

"Yes," said Harry, his voice gone hollow. "Of course."

"And you know that there are people alive who love you very much," Jing-Xi said, her voice dipping even lower. "And even more people who hate Voldemort, who've lost their homes and families to him. They would be willing to die as sacrifices. If not for love of you, to know that they're destroying something that would rid the world of him. Ask, and you shall receive help from them."

Harry squeezed his eyes shut.

"It must be done," said Jing-Xi, as if she were talking about a nasty potion to be taken.

"I _know_," said Harry, and tried to control the impulse to snap and flail. He'd _known_ about this, he had, and there was no way around the Chant of Sacrifice. He was sure that Jing-Xi and Thomas would have found it if there was one. What did that leave but giving in and at least retrieving the Horcruxes?

There was the worry over whether he could ask someone to give up his or her life and not be willing to do it himself, of course, but that would sound silly and selfish in the face of simple reality. They needed to have the Horcruxes, and they needed to face the consequences and the difficulties of destroying them.

_It's Voldemort's fault, _Harry tried to reassure himself. _It's his cruelty and his obsession with immortality that caused this, not the requirements of my ethics. _He opened his eyes and shook his head, focusing on Jing-Xi again. "I want to try and retrieve the ring this weekend, if we can," he said.

"Good." Jing-Xi gently touched the parchment in front of her. "Both Thomas and I will go with you. We have found ways to counter many common and small Unassailable Curses, the ones that Voldemort might have used to defend his property. You will allow that?"

"Of course," said Harry. He meant it, just as he had when Draco had asked him the same thing. "I wouldn't dream of going alone, not when I _know_ I'll need help and something might happen to me when I break the curse that depends on the blood of Slytherin."

"Good," Jing-Xi repeated. Then she leaned forward and looked into his eyes. Puzzled, Harry let her do it. He knew she wasn't a Legilimens. If she were looking for signs of wavering, she wouldn't find them. Harry didn't intend to dash off on his own, and in the end he would allow the sacrifices to destroy the Horcruxes, because he had to. He had chided so many other people in his time for failing to live up to reality; how could he break his own standards?

Perhaps she was looking for something else. Harry was confident she wouldn't find it. He was as committed to this war as he was to his _vates_ path, and the worries were hidden away with his grief about his parents—not suppressed, because he had promised Henrietta he wouldn't suppress them, but private and his.

At last, the Light Lady shook her head and sat back. "Do remember that you can come and talk to me about anything that you might _want_ to talk to me about, Harry," she said, with a slight emphasis on the verb.

"Of course," Harry said, still puzzled. "Thank you for helping us with this. You didn't have to."

Jing-Xi's smile was sorrowful. "What the other Lords and Ladies forget, most of the time, is that we all live in one world," she said, "even though that is the very concept of the Pact. A successful Dark Lord in Britain will affect the balance of power in Australia, in Mexico, in China, in Senegal. We should use our superior knowledge of the magical world and our power to help prevent such problems, not handle them when it's too late."

Harry smiled. "I think I see why we get along so well, my lady." He kissed her hand and took his leave, to contact his sworn companions and confirm their journey this weekend.

SSSSSSSSSS

"But I want to come."

"No."

Ever since he had taken the Switching Potion, Connor thought, folding his arms, his sole contribution to the war effort seemed to be offering help that Harry rejected. Harry at least didn't seem as dismissive of Connor's offer to come to the Gaunt shack with him as he had of Connor's offer to take the Switching Potion and bear his visions. He was looking steadily at Connor, not a piece of parchment, and his eyes were calm, even sorrowful. But his face was set, too.

_It shouldn't have to be, _Connor thought. _If Draco is going, why can't I go? I want to be there in case there's an Unassailable Curse that needs twins to break it._

That wasn't the whole reason, of course. Mostly, he wanted to spend time with his brother, share his danger and his concerns. But Harry didn't seem to consider that a good enough reason, so Connor wouldn't offer it.

"Please, Harry?" he murmured, and tried to keep his voice to the mixture of patience and dignity that he imagined Padma had used when she was pleading with Parvati's parents. "It makes sense that I be there. I don't have as much direct battle experience as the others, but this is a dangerous situation that's not exactly a battle. The perfect way for me to become stronger, don't you think, and more acclimated to the war? And then you'll know that I can defend myself next time, and you won't be so eager to leave me behind."

"That's not the point, Connor," Harry replied calmly. "The people I'm taking along have a special reason to accompany me. I'm not taking along Henrietta simply because she's here and wants to help. It's about including the people I need, not excluding the ones I don't."

Connor tossed his head. He couldn't help it. This was just—this was so _Harry_, to leave people behind to protect them, even if they wanted to come more than anything else in the world. And he thought Harry was forgetting that Connor was his brother again, not a child to be protected. _I'm fifteen minutes younger than he is, not fifteen years. _"And you don't think you'll need me?"

"Not in this capacity." Harry twisted his head to the side for a moment. "Do you think of yourself as not my equal, Connor?"

"What?" _Trust Harry to derail the argument with a nonsensical question._

"Do you think less of yourself because you can't absorb magic?" Harry continued relentlessly. "Do you think that you should be able to talk to snakes? Or meet with Lords and Ladies from different countries, and try to convince them to give help to Britain?"

"Of course not," said Connor, growing more and more befuddled. "The only thing I've ever _envied_ you over is Quidditch. The rest of the time, I was either taking you for granted, angry at you, or the wise and dignified pillar of maturity I've been since fourth year. The wise and dignified _twin_ that you're trying to leave at home," he added significantly.

"Exactly," said Harry, not grasping the hint. "You can't help me on this journey, Connor, but everyone else involved can. They have specialized knowledge, or they've sworn oaths to defend me. But that doesn't mean I dislike you, or that I don't want you with me. Just that your place in the war is different."

"Tell me when you find it, will you?" Connor scowled at him.

Harry's face remained entirely, serenely serious. "_You_ have to find it, Connor," he said. "Do you want to be a fighter? Train harder in defensive magic, and pay attention to the way it's incorporated into all our classes now, not just Peter's. Do you want to be someone who flies around outside of battles rescuing people? Practice picking up more than just the Snitch on your broom. Do you want to be a Healer? Study medical magic."

"I know what I want to do," said Connor, wondering why Harry hadn't phrased it that way from the beginning. He would have understood much more quickly.

"What?" Harry prompted.

"Be a spy and a fighter both," Connor said. "Watch the land for you, scout during battles, and fight when it comes to that." He paused. "And I think I should learn to master my Animagus form, first of all," he added.

Harry laughed in delight. "I don't think the Death Eaters will anticipate a spying boar," he said. "And, so far as they know, we only have three Animagi on our side, since so many people saw my lynx transformation in the Great Hall that day. They'll have no reason to suspect you."

"Good." Connor stood up straight. "But you'll let me come with you when I've demonstrated that I can help?"

"Yes. Of course. That's the major reason I'm letting Draco come with me. He's trained so hard in defensive magic that he's the equal of Bill and Charlie now, and he'll be as good as Owen soon if he keeps on at this current pace."

Connor snickered. Harry blinked at him. Connor debated leaving him in suspense, and decided that wouldn't be _exactly_ fair. "You look so soppy when you talk about Draco," he said. "Your face gets all soft, and your eyes go all dreamy."

Harry promptly flushed. Connor decided he would accept that as adequate punishment for leaving him behind. This time.

_And he's only leaving me behind until I become better able to defend myself, and him._

SSSSSSSSS

Harry waited patiently until Owen reappeared in front of them, with a slight nod. "All's quiet around the shack," he said. "And Bill and Charlie are under cover now, ready to ambush anyone who tries to ambush them."

"Good," said Harry, and reached for Draco's arm. Draco stepped back from him with a raised eyebrow. Harry blinked at him.

"I've been practicing Apparition along with curses," Draco said, with a slight toss of his head. "I could transport _you_ there, Harry, if I wanted to."

Harry snorted, but didn't do anything to diminish the glow of pride that came to his face. Draco deserved to see it. "Then picture the shack," he said, and glanced at the others with him—Thomas, Jing-Xi, Regulus, Snape, and Syrinx. Owen had already Apparated back to the shack to cover them as they came in. "The house, rather than the slope around it. The last time we were there, it was a different season, and I doubt it looks that way now."

"The day I need Apparition advice from my son is the day that I will give up Apparating," Snape said darkly, shutting his eyes.

Harry rolled his own, and then followed the advice, picturing the tumbledown shack, and not what had happened the last time they were there—Rosier's capture and torture of Draco. Bill and Charlie would sound the alarm the moment someone unexpected showed up, and they would cast curses where Harry hesitated. It was the whole reason he had had them travel ahead.

But no alarms sounded, and the darkness of Apparition swallowed him and then cast him out again without a pause. When he looked around, he found that their most unexpected company was absolutely huge drifts of leaves, which seemed to have blown from up the slope. The trees around the dilapidated house were mostly dead. Now, Harry thought he knew why.

Thomas appeared behind him, and then Regulus, and they both turned their heads towards the same part of the house. Harry gave a small nod. That was the Unassailable Curse that could only be broken by the blood of Slytherin. He drew a small knife from his pocket, and looked to Thomas. "The wrist, or the arm?"

"The wrist," said Jing-Xi, appearing without even a pop and striding forward with her magic flaring around her like a floating tapestry. "It will incapacitate you less than a wound on the arm if we need to fight."

Harry nodded, and bent down next to the curse. He felt the others tense, and Draco's hand settled on his shoulder and rested there. A moment later, Snape's hand did the same thing on his other shoulder. Harry fought the impulse to shrug them off. They were doing it to reassure him, and themselves. He could put up with being touched by two people for that short period of time.

He made a small cut across his left wrist, and then he aimed the wound at the knot of the curse. At the same time, he felt Jing-Xi's magic rising around him, wrapping the rest of the magic on the shack in a soft, cushiony cloud. There would be few defenses but the Chant of Sacrifice on the Horcrux itself, but Voldemort had impregnated the walls of the shack with many dark spells.

For the moment, of course, it remained to be seen if the Unassailable Curse could even be broken.

Harry's blood gleamed, six rich drops, on the dark coil of the curse. A moment later, Harry saw a snake flicker into being, its neck arched and its eyes slit and its tongue extended—a mimicry of the snake that formed the Slytherin crest in Hogwarts. The shape of the serpent drank the blood and seemed to consider, head tilted to one side as if evaluating the taste. Harry held his breath.

And then the curse fell apart, and the rest of the spells on the house came to life, lashing out furiously, trying to destroy the intruders.

Jing-Xi's magic met them, and shielded the people around her. Harry could feel her adding more and more substance to the cloud as the minutes wore on. Voldemort might not have anticipated that many people approaching the house would be Lord-level wizards, but he had known about Dumbledore, and the curses were braided and bound on each other to such depths that they reinforced each other's effects. Bursts of black flame and gouts of lavender lightning leaped at Jing-Xi and were forced back, but it took her far more of an effort than it had seemed it would at first.

He could help. Harry stepped up beside her, sparing a small _Integro_ to heal the wound on his wrist, and began to drink the magic of the spells. He grimaced as he did—it was Dark Arts—but it wasn't as inherently foul as the magic from Voldemort and Death Eaters that he had swallowed before. And as he drank, his own magic closed around the swallowed power and began to purify and drain it, breaking it down like stomach acids, making sure it dwelt more comfortably in his body. Harry supposed he was learning how to wield the _absorbere_ gift, in a way he didn't when he automatically slid the magic into another person or a defensive spell.

The final sparks coalesced and died. Jing-Xi stood still, her senses extending along with the waving of her hair towards the shack.

"There are no other defensive spells present," she said, opening her eyes.

Harry let out a relieved breath and started to step forward, but Owen and Syrinx got in the way. "Let us, sir," Syrinx murmured, her golden hair gleaming as she ducked into the shack.

Harry opened his mouth to protest, then shut it, hard. They were sworn companions, and they were doing what a sworn companion was supposed to do. It would be hypocritical to protest now. Draco and Snape had moved up at his shoulders again, and Draco's hand brushed his back now and then, regular as the motion of a pendulum. Reminding him that his life was important to more people than just his sworn companions, Harry supposed.

He hoped no one would notice the dull flush on his face. Outside battle situations, where he could see the necessity of protection, he still found this many people focused on his safety uncomfortable.

Syrinx came back out after several interminable moments; Owen had remained inside to check for more traps, Harry knew. "It's perfectly safe, sir," she said, with a small bow of her head. "Would you care to enter?"

Harry had to bite his tongue again at the formality, and he went inside, with Draco and Snape close behind him, Regulus at Snape's shoulder, and Thomas and Jing-Xi behind Regulus in turn.

The shack inside was a pair of small rooms, with so much dirt smeared into the floor and the walls that it seemed to hover like a living presence in the air. Draco promptly began sneezing and muttering a complaint about dirt getting on his hair and clothing. Snape was impassive, but Harry heard the faint creak as his hand tightened around his wand.

And both of them showed no inclination to move away from his shoulders. Harry shook his head and looked around the room.

A faint shimmer in a corner caught his attention. When he looked closely at it, it didn't quite match the rest of the room—a bend in the wall where there shouldn't be one, a shadow where no shadows should fall. Harry took a step forward and closed his eyes. Yes, there was magic there, though deliberately low-key, nothing to compare to the former formidable defenses on the shack.

Harry, remembering what the document had said about only certain defensive spells being useful around a Horcrux, opened the wound on his wrist with another flick of his knife, and tossed the drops in the direction of the shimmer.

There was a loud and long hiss, like a hot iron rod being plunged into water, and the illusion vanished. Harry nodded. _It was a blood-based ward._

Beyond it, absurdly beautiful for such a gloomy place, a sapphire-blue stone appeared, sitting on the floor. Embedded in it was a heavy golden ring. Harry took a few steps closer, being cautious, and made out the black stone in the center, carved with a deep line that appeared to be the outside of a coat-of-arms. He relaxed. Thomas had said the Peverell ring would look like that.

He took another step closer.

A figure appeared between him and the ring.

Harry slammed to a stop. The figure was no ghost, but looked like a living wizard, other than a slight transparency. He was small, but stolid, with long green robes and a twisting gray beard. His face resembled a monkey's in more than one sense. His hands clutched a wand and a thick staff twined, like a caduceus, with two serpents facing each other.

Harry knew who he was. He'd seen a statue of him before, after all.

"Slytherin," he breathed.

The shade of Salazar Slytherin gave him a slow, lazy smile, and moved both the wand and staff so that they pointed at him. "My descendant did say that I might have to face intruders someday. I did not know that they would manage to break the blood-wards. That you did is interesting. Very interesting." His voice reminded Harry of Thomas's, but drained of all human passion. Where Thomas wanted knowledge for innocent purposes, Harry could well imagine Slytherin getting up to dangerous experiments for the sake of the knowledge he could gain from them, without caring whom he hurt.

"I am, in a sense, your descendant," said Harry, the beat of his heart increasing. He didn't want to fight Slytherin if he could help it. Besides being a Parselmouth, Slytherin had been a dangerous Dark wizard, and if the blue stone holding the ring was a ward-stone—as Harry now suspected—then he would be at least as strong as the shades of Godric, Rowena, and Helga inside Hogwarts. "My blood could break the ward and the curse on the house because of the connection between me and Tom Riddle."

Slytherin laughed. "I'm not a ward, you know, a mindless piece of magic that allows you through because of a technicality. I _know_ who my heir is, and there is only one man in the world that fits that description. And he wishes to live forever, to keep my bloodline alive in the world forever. I see nothing wrong with that." He hissed something, a word that Harry had never heard before, and the snakes twined around the staff turned their heads. Beams of blue light broke from their eyes, one pair aimed at Draco, the other at Snape.

_He can cast spells in Parseltongue, and not just to command basilisks_, Harry thought, reaching out with his _absorbere_ gift to swallow the blue magic. _I didn't even know that was possible. Shit._

He swallowed the magic, but it was unfamiliar, and sharp, like swallowing broken glass. He closed his eyes, ill, and in that moment Slytherin hissed something else, and the whole shack seemed to writhe.

"Harry!" Owen cried out—not in fear, Harry thought, but startlement.

He opened his eyes to see the wooden walls bulging into serpents, with short slim bodies and mouths that seemed all fang. He took a step forward, and then bent over, shuddering as he cried out. The Parseltongue magic he'd swallowed was boiling like poison in his gut, rapidly spreading out through the rest of his magic with the heat of infection.

"You really should look at what you put in your mouth, instead of eating it trustingly," Slytherin remarked, a tone of light condescension in his voice.

Harry didn't respond. The heat was getting worse, and now it seemed to be corroding his magic, breaking it down like some serpent venoms broke down the internal organs. The first of the wooden snakes was drawing near Syrinx. She chanted the Blasting Curse, and that broke off some of the teeth, but not enough, and the teeth flew as splinters, coming close to impaling Owen and Regulus.

_I have to expel the magic._

Harry forced himself to concentrate on that, and not on the danger his friends were in. He had to trust them to protect themselves for a moment. He picked out the heat of the poison and _spat_, vomiting the tainted magic back in Slytherin's general direction.

The shadow flickered and disappeared just as the dark blue light passed through it. Harry narrowed his eyes. _So he can be hurt by his own magic as transformed by my magic. Perhaps._

He hissed a command to stop at the snakes, but they ignored him. Harry had to disintegrate them instead, which resulted in more splinters, and huge puffs of dust, and gaping holes in the walls of the shack. He couldn't imagine that Voldemort didn't know about their intrusion by now. If he had wards on the shack, they would be clanging like Muggle sirens.

Slytherin gave another casual hiss, and Harry felt his legs shifting, scales swelling under his skin, his arms slamming close to his sides to be swallowed by smoothness. He was being forcibly Transfigured into a snake.

Harry leaped in his mind instead, reaching for his Animagus form. The well-known lynx shape settled around him, forcing the coils away. Harry charged the shade and scraped a paw through him, but Slytherin went transparent, and Harry's paw moved through the air where he had been without stopping.

Slytherin spat. Harry ducked his head. He felt the burn and spatter of what seemed acid on the back of his neck. He shuddered to think of what would have happened if he'd been looking Slytherin in the eyes when that venom flew.

He estimated the condition of his allies with a quick glance. Minor bleeding wounds covered every one of them, and Slytherin could turn his attention to them at any moment. Harry was unsure that McGonagall or Henrietta could Transfigure someone else back from snake shape if they were changed with Parseltongue magic.

_We need to retreat. We know that we can access the shack, now, and I speak Parseltongue, so I can learn this magic, if I study it. And I suppose there can't be alarm wards, can there, since I drank them when Jing-Xi invaded the shack?_

He did pause a moment, to see if Jing-Xi knew something that might defeat the Parseltongue, but when her light advanced, Slytherin addressed a few annoyed words to it, and it not only stopped but vanished altogether.

_Voldemort would have appeared by now to defend his property, I think. We'll have another chance. And, in any case, I'm not about to have my people killed or hopelessly wounded in a battle that I know we can fight another day._

Harry tried to ignore the little squirm of happiness in his stomach at the thought of not losing anyone as a sacrifice to the Horcrux yet, and transformed back to human, calling out, "Apparate!"

They didn't question him, thank Merlin, but simply did it, other than Draco. _Of course._ Harry snatched his arm and narrowed his eyes at Slytherin, hissing a threat in Parseltongue as they vanished.

He was pleased to see a brief look of shock on the shade's face. Slytherin must not have heard him when he tried to command the wooden serpents. It seemed to surprise him that Harry was a Parselmouth.

_And I look forward to surprising him even more._

SSSSSSSSSSSS

The world was laughter.

He had known the moment battle was joined at the house that held the ring, of course, and had watched from a distance. In fact, it had been a simple matter to summon a vision of the shack in the Grand Design of pounded blood and flesh on the floor of his burrow. He had the power to do that now.

He had seen no reason to interfere. The nasty surprise of Slytherin's waiting shade meant that Harry could not fight his way to the ring yet. And the defenses on the shack were set to repair themselves when the danger was gone. Yes, few defensive spells could be used around a Horcrux protected with the Chant of Sacrifice, but blood-based ones were permitted, and the blood of Slytherin—the _true_ blood of Slytherin, not the debased and unnatural connection Harry had with him—maintained the ward-stone and would defend its own.

No need to let Harry think he knew about the intrusion. Not yet. Harry would come back, doubtless with Parseltongue magic on his own lips.

And Lord Voldemort, the only true Lord Britain would ever know, would be waiting to meet him when he did.

His gaze slid sideways, to the Death Eater who crouched next to him, silent and obedient as a dog.

_In very good company._


	41. Transportation

**Chapter Thirty-One: Transportation**

Harry closed his eyes. He could picture the incantation in his head, the shapes of both the letters and the way his mouth would have to move when making the sounds. He held them there firmly, and then said, "_Lumos._"

The word came out in Parseltongue. Harry opened his eyes in triumph and watched as a small, bobbing light showed up unsteadily in front of him. It only danced for a few moments before winking out, but given that it was the first result he had to show after five days of effort, Harry thought he was allowed to be proud anyway.

Parseltongue magic was complicated and difficult to learn, and when Harry had turned up information on it, he saw why most wizards, even Parselmouths, rarely bothered with it. One had to move from the instinctive way in which the human mouth formed spells to the ways in which the serpentine tongue would form the same incantations—and since most spell words didn't have natural Parseltongue equivalents, this involved mental and magical effort as well as physical strain. It took a long time to work up to the more powerful spells even then.

Harry knew that they didn't have that time. His main purpose was to accustom his body to the feeling, sound, sense, and taste of Parseltongue magic so that he could swallow it without harm the next time he faced Slytherin's shade. More research had convinced him that Parseltongue magic was not naturally poisonous to someone with an _absorbere_ gift; it was only the strangeness of it that had made him choke. He could build up a tolerance.

"_Someone comes,_" Argutus, who had been alternately complimenting him on and complaining about his pronunciation, said abruptly.

Harry turned and walked up beside the Omen snake, facing the door of the classroom he'd chosen. He knew this was a person Argutus didn't like, or he would have hissed a greeting. Instead, his body coiled back on itself and his tail lashed, an impressive sight now that he had reached more than six feet. Harry stroked the milky-mirrored scales to calm him.

The door opened, and Michael slipped in.

Harry frowned. He hadn't had wards up to protect the room, because he knew he wouldn't advance into dangerous spells and someone else needed to be able to fetch him quickly if an attack happened, but it still showed a lamentable lack of caution on Michael's part that he'd simply entered without at least knocking or calling out first, or testing for guard spells.

"What is it?" Harry asked.

"I wanted to talk to you."

Harry concealed his feeling that this was wasting time, and nodded. One more stroke served to calm Argutus down, or at least make him feel as if there was something interesting on the other side of the room he should look at. Harry nodded to one of the two chairs he'd intended to practice minor hexes on, if he managed to progress that far. "Sit down."

"I'll stand, thanks." Michael crossed his arms and stood a distance from him, staring. Harry breathed in and out, and reminded himself that he had no right to feel irritated. Michael had lost his mother and baby sister because he'd trusted to Harry's promises to protect them, promises he hadn't been able to keep. He would still be grieving. It was only a little more than a month since Medusa and Eos had died.

Harry himself still felt the wound, but he had no time to dwell on it. Sometimes he wondered if there was an injury deep inside him, like the mark a dragon's claw would make across a tree, and if it grew worse every time he heard about a death. He hoped not. A wound deep enough in a tree eventually made it fall.

"What did you want to speak with me about?" he asked, when it seemed that Michael wouldn't volunteer the information on his own.

"The fact that you still haven't made me a sworn companion and accepted my oath back," said Michael lowly.

"Part of that has to do with your attack on Liane's family, you know," Harry pointed out.

Whatever else Michael might have expected out of him, it, too obviously, hadn't been that. He blinked and stepped backwards. "You think I attacked them because I hated them?" he asked.

"What was the reason?"

"I was trying to protect you," Michael snapped. "To show that I wouldn't let your attackers go unpunished. But obviously you valued their lives more than you valued the lives of my mother and sister, since you protected them better."

Harry controlled his impulse to snap. _This war isn't all about you, remember? Your efforts aren't the only thing that will end it, and other people's grief is no less than your own. _"I am sorry for what happened," he said.

"Sorry won't bring them back."

"Neither will your becoming a sworn companion."

Michael's eyes glittered. "That's true," he said. "But I could at least be a voice of conscience, warning you against mistakes that might cost other lives." He leaned forward and studied Harry for a moment. "You've lost too many so far, haven't you? Mr. Bulstrode. My—my mother and my sister." He choked on the words, but didn't let them delay him long. "Your parents. Not to mention those who've disappeared in the past few weeks."

Harry nodded tightly. They had finally noticed a pattern of disappearances in both the magical and the Muggle worlds that undoubtedly connected to Voldemort seizing victims. They simply vanished, however, and Harry had not been able to discover their fates, even the one night he deliberately went without the potion that would suppress the visions. Voldemort had simply ignored the opportunity to strike at him. That told Harry he was preparing some great plan.

_Drain them of their magic, and—what?_

"You can't protect all of them," said Michael, in a patronizing tone. "My brother keeps telling you that. But you can protect more of them than you have so far. I could be the one who reminds you to do that. Owen and the others are too caught up in what you are, and their notion of how much you've suffered, to talk to you that way. _I'm_ not. I'm a living representative of the suffering."

"If that is true," said Harry, trying not to show how much those words affected him, "then why did you want to attack Liane's family and continue the suffering? They had lost a child."

"Much as I may dislike you," Michael said, "you are still our best chance for winning this war. People who cause their own suffering _just_ to get at you are not people I wish to resemble."

"And does that mean you wouldn't do what I ask of you, if I did make you a sworn companion again?" Harry asked. "That you would attack people I asked you to spare? That's worse than useless, for both of us. You would have no loyalty to anything but your own cause, the way you do now. I don't see why placing a scar on your arm would be a good thing."

"It would remind others of my closeness to you," said Michael, his voice clipped. "It would give me something back in common with my twin. It would confer a sense of legitimacy on my reminders to you of your duty, which I don't have as long as others simply see me as an interfering busybody. It would ease my pain and help prevent it in the future, but I can completely see why you don't wish to place the scar there. After all, that would disturb your attention from your intense focus on your self-pity." He whirled and strode towards the door.

Harry opened his mouth to call him back, but Argutus hissed, attracting his attention. "_I don't like the way you smell when you're with him._" The Omen snake's tail was lashing back and forth hard enough to hit the wall. "_You smell guilty and self-loathing and glad to hurt. Don't talk to him._" He flowed over to Harry and up his body, coiling over his chest and draping his head on the side of Harry's neck, flicking out his tongue to taste his skin. "_You already smell too guilty and self-loathing and glad to hurt._"

"But that would be what could change," Harry told Argutus quietly, stroking his neck as he watched the closing door. "He could tell me when I'm feeling too much that way, and pull me back to reality."

He wheezed a bit as Argutus's coils tightened, showing just a hint of the immense strength that would crush his enemies, and did crush his prey. "_I would do that,"_ said Argutus insistently. "_Draco would do that. The potions-smelling one would do that. Don't rely on him. We will all do it, and hurt you less._"

Harry considered that for a moment, then nodded. If it was true that he couldn't forget about the war and what it cost other people, then it was also true that he couldn't do stupid things just to indulge one person. And associating with Michael would get them both hurt in the end, fueling Michael's admitted dislike and his own liking for censure and blame. It could easily become the situation with the monitoring board all over again, with Harry using Michael as an excuse to cage himself up.

_I can't afford that. The limits I put on myself have to be ones that I put there because they're necessary, not to please other people. I'm giving both Draco and Snape some space from my more unusual emotions and sparing myself pain because I know they'd argue against them, for example, but it would be wrong if I was doing it just because I thought that was what they'd like best._

He shook his head and turned back to practice the Parseltongue magic again, but had to pause as a second person knocked on the door. His astonishment increased when a silver-haired woman entered, one he didn't recognize, with a girl he vaguely did by her side.

"Adrienne?" he asked, studying the girl. He thought this was the same Veela representative, cousin of Millicent's husband-to-be Pierre, who had come to visit him in Woodhouse and tell him the Veela Council mostly supported him.

"Yes. You recognized me." She gave him a dazzling smile and strode across the floor to take his hand, seemingly refusing to be disconcerted by the enormous snake twined around him. Harry, in turn, tried to ignore the shimmer of the webs that bound her. She willingly went under those webs, Adrienne had told him once, when she traveled abroad. "I am glad. This is my cousin Roxane." She turned and nodded to the woman just behind her. "She only speaks French, but we have cast a translation spell."

"Hello," said Roxane, whose eyes were intent and searching his for—Harry didn't know what. They seemed to find it, however, and after a moment she relaxed.

"What can I do for the Veela Council?" Harry asked, wondering how he would balance whatever they might want of him among his other duties. But he would have to do it, whatever it was. That was the way he _needed _to proceed in this war, lest he become too much of a _vates_ or too much of a killer.

"We have come to offer you help," said Adrienne gently, "not the other way around. We are sure that you must have too many people asking you for help as it is, and of course your first allegiance must be to Britain. Roxane can tell you more, however, as she is the official representative of the Council, and thus jealous of her prerogative." She bowed her head and stepped aside.

Roxane had a small frown on her face, as if she didn't approve of Adrienne's teasing, but she started explaining as soon as Harry looked at her. "We will offer transportation out of the country to those humans or magical creatures who cannot stay and fight the war, or who wish to flee. We can describe Apparition locations in France to human wizards, and homes willing to receive them. For the magical creatures, we will have ships waiting in the Channel."

Harry stared in spite of himself, then shook his head. "And the French Ministry approves of this?" he whispered.

"The ships are our own." Roxane folded her arms. "They have nothing to do with them, approving them or disapproving of them. But yes, they have agreed to shelter those English wizards who may come to them and have no relative or friend to stay with."

"_Thank_ you," Harry breathed, feeling his chest go tight.

Adrienne smiled at him. "When Millicent summoned Pierre, we knew things were growing bad in the Islands," she said. "And now we learn what you face, and that makes the notion of escape more urgent, not less. We will transport anyone who asks for it, Harry. We ask only that you spread the message."

Harry hesitated a moment, wondering if he should involve the Ministry. On the one hand, they needed to spread the message so that people would know they stood a chance of fleeing; on the other hand, they didn't want Voldemort to discover enough information to interfere and strike at the helpless ships.

In the end, he decided, reluctantly, that he would have to approach the Ministry. There were people who would listen to them if they spoke about this, people who would think Harry was lying. And the Light purebloods or frightened citizens, as much as the ones who followed him, deserved to know about the opportunity of sanctuary.

Of course, that didn't mean he had to talk to Juniper directly.

SSSSSSSSSSS

Aurora stared at the owl in front of her. The owl stared back, and then hooted softly, as if to say that she didn't appreciate the stare, and someone had _better_ remove the message from her leg soon.

Aurora did, though she kept a careful eye on the great white bird's enormous talons. This was Harry's personal bird. She wouldn't put it past him to have told the owl to claw her.

The owl simply shook her feathers as the letter was taken off her foot, though, and then waited. Aurora opened the envelope.

_September 22nd, 1997_

_Dear Madam Whitestag:_

_We have never been the best of friends, but that does not mean we stand on opposite sides of the fence. You once aspired to be my conscience when I asked you to, and then accepted that you could not be and retreated when I asked for that. You know something about voluntary limitations. I cannot believe that you follow even Juniper blindly. You are too smart for that._

_I wanted to tell you that the Veela Council has offered sanctuary for magical creatures and humans who wish to flee to France. They will have ships waiting for the magical creatures, and people who can describe Apparition locations for the wizards. Of course, if too much detail is given out, Voldemort may attack, but I think the message is still worth passing. My main concern is that if only I announce it, there will be people who need the sanctuary and don't flee because they don't believe me._

_Please announce this. You may tell Acting Minister Juniper that you heard of this directly from the Veela Council themselves, if you think that will work. They can send a representative to meet with you, and that will both strengthen the lie and make it seem as if the Veela are willing to work with the British Ministry._

_If you do nothing, then I will approach someone else in the Ministry. I sent this letter to you first not because everything depends on you, but because I believed you the most reasonable and moderate member of the Order of the Firebird._

_Yours,_

_Harry _vates.

Aurora laid the letter slowly on the desk, and stared at the snowy owl. "I suppose he wants an answer?" she whispered.

The owl bobbed her head, golden eyes bright, and held out a leg as if she thought that Aurora had one right then. Aurora sat back, though, and then turned to face the wall. It was easier if she didn't have to look at the parchment or the bird, both of which seemed to expect things of her that she wasn't sure she could give.

"What can I do?"

And then she closed her eyes, because, no matter where her allegiances might lie or what oaths she might have sworn, she knew there was only one right thing to do. She would have to tell Erasmus that the Veela Council was willing to offer transportation, and offer whatever flattery or polite lies might make him think that his own diplomatic brilliance had won their cooperation. He would reject the idea of the announcement out of hand if he thought this came from Harry.

_Our people deserve to know about this chance, no matter if they trust Erasmus or Harry. He's right about that._

But it told on her, it wore on her, it ate at her, that it would have to be a lie, and that there was no chance of telling Erasmus that the _vates_ had a good idea. Aurora had ideals of fairness too strong for her own good, sometimes. People should know the truth, whether it was good or evil, and someone heroic should earn credit for his actions. She had wanted everyone to know that Harry had killed her children when that was the most important factor, when they would have forgotten about it and honored him as the hero of the Battle of Hogwarts otherwise, and she would want everyone to know that Harry had earned the Veela Council's support now.

But she had grown used, in the last few months, to accepting that what she _wanted_ to happen rarely happened, and it could not be allowed to stand in the way of a greater good.

_And if you think that a greater good sometimes isn't one? What happens if you change your mind later?_

That was what had happened to her and some of Erasmus's ideas. She had supported the legislation against Dark magic, because she _had_ to. She had let it pass, hadn't she? That meant she had to support it, had to believe in it.

But in the last week or so, she had changed her mind conclusively about that. It was a bad idea to ban the Dark Arts in the middle of the war and send a substantial portion of the population fleeing into the arms of their enemy. Not every Dark wizard would trust Harry to protect their interests, since he also used Light magic and served Light wizards. So they had gone to Voldemort. Or some of them had, anyway, according to rumor, and some was still too many.

She had a chance to make up for that, she hoped, at least a little, if she convinced Erasmus to make Harry's announcement.

In the end, she turned around, wrote a letter assuring Harry that she would get Erasmus to announce this one way or the other, and sent it back with the snowy owl. The bird flew off eagerly, as if she didn't want to stay in the Ministry one moment longer than necessary. Aurora snorted in spite of herself. She understood the feeling.

"That was the owl of a friend of ours, wasn't it?"

Aurora spun, her heart loud and insistent in her throat. She couldn't believe that she hadn't heard the door to her office open, or the approach of the wizard who stood there now, evaluating her with calm eyes. Cupressus Apollonis smiled and leaned against the doorframe. Aurora locked eyes with him, waiting for him to call out for the Acting Minister and get her damned for cooperation with the _vates._

"I asked you a question," said Cupressus at last.

Aurora stiffened her shoulders, a surge of nervous, angry defiance striking up her spine. _If he wants to condemn me, at least he can do it for something I actually did. _"Yes, it was," she said.

And Cupressus smiled, and closed the door behind him.

Aurora stared at it for long moments. Cupressus Apollonis was currently the most confusing person in her immediate vicinity.

_Although I come close myself, _she thought, and tried to calm her conflicting feelings, and stood to take the message to Erasmus. She would do what she could to honor the principles she believed in, but surely, by now, it was too late to completely change her allegiance.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Narcissa picked up the heavy stone cup and studied it intently. If she could not locate the writing she believed to be on it, then she was inclined to agree with Regulus; it would make a good gift for Harry, as it automatically purified whatever drink or food rested in it from poison.

But then she saw the letters incised near the bottom of the cup, and shook her head, handing it back to Regulus. "This is another of those treasures that can be used only by someone of Black blood," she said. "We may send it to Draco, but Harry's legal heir status is not enough to protect him. Otherwise, the drink or food set in the cup will turn to poison instead."

Her cousin scowled, his face reminding Narcissa forcefully of a time when he'd been seven years old and just discovered that he wasn't allowed to tag along with his older brother and play the games that Sirius did. "Damn," he muttered, reluctantly taking the cup. "If only our ancestors hadn't been so insistent that _blood_ was the true measure of someone's worth, instead of magic or character…"

Narcissa concealed a smirk as she stepped away from Regulus. He knew as well as she did that most of the ancient pureblood families had been the same way. If they discovered relatively few treasures that could help Harry, it was more the fault of a common perception in the wizarding world than the Blacks themselves.

Regulus mournfully set the cup down among the large pile of objects they would have to hesitate about using, and then paused before he turned to the next one he'd retrieved and needed to evaluate, a gold-framed mirror. "Narcissa?" he asked softly.

She blinked. That tone in his voice meant something more than a question about whether or not she remembered this Black treasure from her childhood. "Yes?"

He twisted around to face her. And, to her astonishment, she realized that it was _concern_ in his eyes, not a need for reassurance. "How are you doing?" he asked. "With the loss of Lucius, with the fact that your son will be a major target for the Death Eaters, since he's Harry's lover? Can you bear it?"

Narcissa looked down at her clasped hands. She had hoped no one would ask her this question, even Harry, even her son. Knowing that someone else had noticed her problems made her more likely to break and confess them.

But, after a moment, the surge of prickling tears behind her eyelids went away, and she took a deep breath and lifted her head. "I am a Black and a Malfoy," she said. "I bear them because I must, because I know that worse things will come of not carrying them. I might hesitate when I see Lucius across the battlefield, for example, and believe so strongly that he can be redeemed that I let him hurt others. That is what happened to Harry when Voldemort brought him along to Malfoy Manor. And I might begin to believe that my son _will_ die, instead of its simply being likely. I might forget that he has the protection and love of the second strongest wizard in Britain. I would not want to forget those things. I live in reality, Regulus, not in a misty dream-world. And so I simply live with the horrible things."

Regulus studied her a moment, eyes brooding. Then he said, "I never planned to have children, you know."

Narcissa said nothing. She had not known what ran through Regulus's mind when he joined the Death Eaters. She had assumed he did it mostly to please his parents, Capella and Canopus, whom he feared would disown him otherwise. He had not been exceptionally brave, then, Regulus. He had been the spoiled Slytherin scion of a Dark pureblood family, and even if he was gentler and more humorous than most people would have been in that position, he could not escape the shadow of his upbringing.

"But I never planned to spend more than a decade as a dog, either." For a moment, Regulus's lips curled in a bitter smile, but it was gone so quickly that Narcissa, as ever, was unsure how much his long imprisonment and torture had affected him. "And now I find myself with a son, a legal heir, who has a high chance of not surviving the war."

He focused on her again, and his smile turned melancholy. "I suppose I was looking for some advice on having a child in a dangerous world. That's all."

Narcissa's shoulders relaxed. She could deal with this better than she could with someone asking her, specifically, how she was.

"One lives with it," she said simply. "Thinks about other things when possible, and grows used to the knowledge that part of oneself is out in the world, enduring danger, perhaps to be burned. Rather like being unable to extract your hand from a cup of boiling water, when I think of it."

Regulus studied her for a moment longer, and then nodded. "Thank you," he said, though Narcissa wasn't sure what, if anything, in her words had managed to comfort him. He turned and picked up the mirror. "And do you remember anything about this particular piece from our loving childhood?"

Narcissa applied herself to answer, grateful that he wouldn't be pursuing the subject any further.

Yes, it was like having her hand in a cup of water which might begin to boil at any moment. Draco was in danger every moment he breathed, now, when a Death Eater might kill him on Voldemort's orders or for a taste of glory. And of course he had been in keener danger before this, when he suffered at Voldemort's hands, or the hands of Evan Rosier.

But Narcissa had fought Lucius and her own protective tendencies and the weight of all the pureblood dances and Harry's enemies for Draco to have the right to make his own choices. She could not rail against the consequences now simply because his choices involved some danger.

_One bows one's head. One endures._


	42. Whose Whole Life's Love Goes Down

This chapter is titled after a line from what is probably the grandest (and saddest) of Swinburne's poems, "The Triumph of Time": "I will say no word that a man might say/ Whose whole life's love goes down in a day."

Also, **big freaking honking cliffhanger warning.**

**Chapter Thirty-Two: Whose Whole Life's Love Goes Down In a Day**

Harry lay back on their bed, smiling slightly as he stroked Argutus. Draco had fallen asleep, exhausted after yet another day of hard training. Their soft hissing didn't tend to wake him up when he was snoring like that, though Harry knew better than to move; Draco would move after him and drape an arm across his chest again, until they finally fell off the bed.

"_So we go to the den tomorrow,_" said Argutus, and curled closer to Harry. Ever since he had learned that another wizard who spoke Parseltongue lived there, he had refused to call it a "house," though he could; he'd insisted that where a snake-speaker lived must be a den. "_And you will win because you have me with you._"

"Smug one," Harry responded, running one finger under the Omen snake's chin and down his throat as far as he could reach. Argutus let out a hiss that left his tongue fluttering in the air for a long moment. Harry liked to think of it as his version of a purr. "_Such_ a smug one."

"_I will make the difference,_" said Argutus, and laid his head down, turning so that his mouth was buried in his coils. "_You would have won the first time if you had had me with you._"

Harry chose to shut his eyes instead of replying. He knew that tomorrow would be hard. Just because he could swallow Parseltongue magic now didn't mean that he expected Slytherin to give up and accept it tamely. And he knew that Voldemort might come. That he hadn't appeared the first time to defend his property gave Harry hope, but also made him suspicious. Surely, even if his wards had been so thoroughly disrupted that first time that he hadn't sensed the intrusion, Slytherin would still have repaired the breach and told him.

_Not that it matters, _Harry thought, as sleep gripped him and began to tow him out to sea with warm hands. _We'll still do battle in the shack, because we have to. And I may yet surprise Tom._

As well as the Parseltongue magic, he'd been practicing with his _absorbere_ gift. Voldemort probably knew the tricks he had discovered, but he didn't know that Harry knew them.

_And if comes near me with his stolen magic, then I am going to steal it away from him in turn._

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry studied the group of people who waited behind him carefully. They were eight: his four sworn companions, Draco, Snape, Regulus, and Narcissa, who, this time, didn't seem content to sit back while her son went into danger she might be able to help with. Thomas was busy, once again, researching ways they might be able to destroy the Horcrux without a willing sacrifice once they had captured it, and Jing-Xi had again been called back to China. Harry could hardly blame her. She was a _true_ Lady, one who cared for her people, and when they needed her, she went to them. It was incredibly generous of her to give him as much time as she did.

Connor had begged hard to come, and so, oddly, had Michael. Harry had turned them both down, Michael for the obvious reason and Connor because he hadn't yet achieved his Animagus form. His twin's face had gone stubborn when Harry said that, and he'd hurried out of the room. Harry hoped he was on his way to study.

Michael had sneered and stomped off. Harry hoped he wasn't causing more problems between him and his twin, but until and unless Owen complained, he would just have to assume that he wasn't. He simply had too much to do to worry about _potential_ problems.

"Stay back, all of you," he cautioned them. "Argutus and I—" he touched the head of the Omen snake, who was twined around his body in looping coils "—have to be the ones to fight Slytherin. If you can help, then take an opportunity to do so, and of course you can defend yourself from any spells he casts. But don't interfere thinking that you'll help us if you do. I can almost guarantee that you _won't_ help us."

"Yes, Harry," said Draco, with a meekness in his tone that Harry didn't believe for a moment.

Snape merely snorted, his dark eyes reflecting that he'd interfere whenever he damn well pleased. Likewise, Regulus and Narcissa looked unimpressed. Harry concealed a sigh, and hoped they'd let him do when he needed to do.

"Let's go," he said, turning forward.

Once again, Bill and Charlie Apparated in before them, and both Owen and Syrinx went to scout this time. Harry waited, quietly poised. He half-expected a warning that Voldemort was there, and half-expected them not to come back at all.

It was odd, how calmly he could think of that. Perhaps it was the hurrying of his heart in his ears over _everything_, Harry thought. He was thinking now of what would happen when they captured the Horcrux, how the end of that was not the end, of how they would need to sacrifice someone to destroy it. Compared to that, a death he did not truly expect to happen seemed a small thing.

He was tense, coiled, floating, not quite there. The closer they came to capturing the ring, the closer they came to—

To something that Harry truly wondered if he had the strength to step aside and let happen.

"Nothing there," said Owen quietly, appearing with a muted _crack_ in front of them. "Come ahead."

Harry nodded and closed his eyes. He heard Argutus's smooth hiss of delight as they Apparated. The Omen snake had grown to like it, though perhaps only because he experienced it so rarely. Unlike the other time he had come along when they approached the shack—the time that Evan Rosier had managed to seize Draco—he did not slither off into the underbrush to investigate, though Harry saw from his wildly flicking tongue that he would have liked to. He stayed wound around Harry's body, and Harry turned to face the shack.

He saw at once that the Unassailable Curse that depended on the blood of Slytherin had not been repaired, and neither had the dark curses that had prevented simple entrance to the house last time. Harry smirked slightly. Either Voldemort truly did not know, or Slytherin had tried to repair them and failed. This _could_ be a trap, of course, but it was an extremely risky one, given that Voldemort was taking the chance of losing one of the Horcruxes that guaranteed his immortality. And no matter how Harry stretched his senses, he could not sense the presence of a single ward. _Yes, he is taking a chance, thinking that he'll simply know when we appear, and be able to anticipate it and leave whatever he's doing at the time._

Of course, true common sense would have required Voldemort to move the Horcrux once he realized they had figured out the secret of Slytherin's guardianship. But Voldemort had never been that practical. Once he chose something—whether it was a hiding place or a symbolic day of attack or a vessel for a Horcrux—he tended to root himself there and cling to it. Harry was grateful for it. It made him much easier to defeat.

"Follow me," he said, and slipped into the house, holding the door open as the others followed him.

He frowned as he watched their shadows ripple across the floor, and then realized what the strangeness came from. Narcissa, Snape, and Draco all had regular, human shadows, but the one that followed Regulus was still a Grim. It made it seem as if Death herself were following them into the house, but Harry knew the cause. He had no reason to feel so nervous.

_Except that one_, he thought, as he focused on the ring planted in what he now realized was an anchor-stone, to bind a shade, not a ward-stone. Merlin alone knew where Voldemort had found one. The ones binding the shades of the Founders had been placed in Hogwarts's roots before they became so rare, but this sapphire was a treasure, whether Voldemort had discovered it in an ancient tomb or some place more prosaic.

There was no blood-ward in front of it, either. Harry took a deep breath, the possibility that this might be a trap surging to the front of his mind.

But he could not forsake the pursuit of this Horcrux now. He simply had to take his chances and do what he could to outface it and outfight it.

He felt Argutus squeeze reassuringly around him. Harry hissed out a greeting to Slytherin and Voldemort both, if he was listening, and then took a step forward.

Instantly, the shade was between him and the ring. Slytherin's eyes darted over Argutus, and he smiled, once, in contempt.

"A Light snake, boy?" he asked. "Even if you can speak the proper language of a Dark wizard, such a serpent will not help you." He aimed his wand and staff again, and hissed the same command that he'd used before, which Harry could now vaguely understand as "Light eyes." The serpents began to aim their heads at Harry's friends, and he could see their eyes glowing blue.

Harry opened up his _absorbere_ gift.

This time, he did not merely make it a flexible gullet leading back into his own magic, the way he had all the other times he'd used it. He envisioned a pack of hungry mouths all around him, and they took form, wide-stretched jaws with the misty bodies of serpents trailing back from them. They swarmed Slytherin, mouths opening and closing with a metallic sound, pulling eagerly at the Parseltongue magic. A snake could consume it without trouble.

Slytherin made a loud, startled sound, which disrupted his blue light spell. Harry moved forward, and the battle was joined in earnest.

Slytherin hissed another incantation, and the floor at his feet became a pit, from which vipers began to flow. Harry's snakes swung and closed in on them. Fangs snapped and tore, ripping heads from slender red bodies. The vipers tried to bite and poison Harry's serpents, but they were magical, and their existence depended on the whim of his will. When Harry imagined them flickering out of danger and then firming again—their steel teeth were the only things that couldn't vanish, since he needed the open mouths to absorb Slytherin's magic—they did so, and the vipers were left swaying in midair and looking foolish in the moment before they were decapitated.

Harry felt the magic flooding him, rich and dark as soil swarming with worms underground. He understood, now, after some study, why Parseltongue was considered such a Dark gift. It bespoke vague memories of a time when Parselmouths like Slytherin had wielded magic that no one else could—always Dark. Speaking to snakes in and of itself was almost a neutral gift. What that gift allowed its owners to do was not.

Jing-Xi's magic had stopped short of working against Slytherin for an excellent reason. Nothing Light could touch that power.

Harry had suspected that Argutus would not be able to help him during the battle itself, and so it proved. Every darting strike he made resulted, at best, in a viper dodging out of the way and coming in behind him. At last, Argutus simply clung to Harry's neck and torso and reflected spells that would otherwise be invisible in his scales.

"_He's calling up a spell that looks like a cobra behind you!_" he called authoritatively, when Harry's attention was so fixed on the shade he hadn't looked around in some time. "_And now there's a boa dancing down the wall, aiming for Draco. Tell him to lift his wand and fend it off with a Dark shield. They won't respect it otherwise._"

Harry tossed his head back and called out the message to Draco, hoping like hell it was in English, then fixed on Slytherin again. The man had finally run out of serpents, and though he had tried some of the same spells he had when he first faced Harry, including spitting the acid-venom at his eyes, none of them had worked. Now Harry's snakes faced him, jaws champing up and down, hungry to swallow more magic, and Harry's own power had grown, swelling until it almost filled the front room of the small shack. Slytherin was watching him with a look of absolute hatred.

"You cannot take this ring from me," he breathed. "My blood _owns_ it. And you are not of my blood. You cannot replace my descendant if you kill him."

"At this point," Harry said, "I don't really care." He didn't know if they were conversing in English or Parseltongue, and he didn't care about that, either. He wanted the ring. Slytherin was in the way. "You can, I suppose, step aside and survive that way. I won't destroy the anchor-stone. But I will have the ring."

"_No._"

Harry shrugged slightly. "Suit yourself."

And he sent the swarm of serpents forward, eating greedily at the magic that surrounded the shade—including the magic that maintained Slytherin in this form. Argutus let out a hiss that sounded like a cheer.

Slytherin did not die easily. He stamped on and crushed the heads of many of the little snakes, and many of his spells attained half-life, sparking and spitting over the heads of Harry's creations. But though he was an accomplished Dark wizard and a Parselmouth, he was not an _absorbere_. That gift must have entered the Gaunt line—the Slytherin line—after his time.

Harry swallowed. For the first time that he could remember, he didn't feel guilty about doing so. He consumed the magic as if it were food offered at a feast, and remembered that the shade of Slytherin would have destroyed him if he could have. His snakes took chunk after chunk of magic, and it flowed through their bodies and came to him, and he ate it and grew stronger, and that enabled him, in turn, to send stronger serpents forward.

Slytherin let out a noise that sounded like a scream of frustration. Then he clasped his hands together and fell into a long chant, ugly with twining sounds like mating rattlesnakes.

Harry made two of the snakes climb his legs and tear into the intangible flesh of him. His legs vanished, and the snakes fell back to the floor, but the damage was done, the spell disrupted. Slytherin's eyes snapped open, and he stared at where his limbs had been, before lifting his head and staring at Harry with an expression that, for the first time, showed true fear.

"You would destroy the last bit of me," he whispered. "The last remnant of me."

Harry didn't bother answering as two more of his serpents grew flaps of skin like kites around their heads. They soared upward in dizzying spirals and locked their fangs on either side of Slytherin's face. A bite inward, and another bite inward, and they scooped out the flesh of his cheeks. He screamed. Harry scooped up the magic that came to him, Dark, but not tainted as so much of what Voldemort's power was.

"Does it not matter to you that you are of my House?" Slytherin demanded abruptly. "Does it not matter to you that you carry my gift, however illegitimately you obtained it? Does it—"

And his words went garbled, as the serpents twined around him and ate his tongue, and he fell beneath the swarm. Harry swallowed the last parts of it, shuddering slightly. This magic was nearly a thousand years old, and, like fine wine, the age affected the taste.

And then it was done, Slytherin was gone, and the road to the ring was open. Harry could feel shock and silence like a heartbeat behind him, moving in muffled knocks against the shack's walls.

He took a step forward, and bent over the ring. This close, he could see a faint strip of silver running around the top, separating the stone from the gold, and he could make out the dark, intense shimmer of power that had marked both the diary and the locket. He started to reach down to it.

And then _power_ spoke, from the door of the shack, and Harry turned to see Voldemort there, with his magic flaring around him, and Lucius crouched next to him like a dog.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

There was too much magic.

Narcissa had not ever imagined she would say that. She was, after all, the daughter of a pureblood family who had made a hobby of collecting magic and carrying it back home again, and of creating or fitting magical items to the heirs of their line. Always unspoken, in the back of her ancestors' minds, Narcissa knew, had been the hope that one of their descendants would manage to become a Dark Lord or Lady by possession of artifacts alone.

But this magic was too much. It spread around the shack like a choking cloud, sinking into her lungs, stabbing her brain, making her drop to the floor despite her desire not to bow before such a creature. Tiny spots of blood welled to the surface all along her arms. Her brain stuttered to a stop, dragged into and bound within a world of sludge and dark crystal.

She saw her husband kneeling beside the Dark Lord, and met his eyes in comradeship. At the moment, she could not be angry at him for succumbing to the hold that Voldemort still had over him and running away. There was nothing but this magic in the world, dominating her, dominating everyone who came in contact with it. She saw almost everyone around the room bow, one by one.

There were two exceptions. One was Harry, who still stooped over the blue stone that held the ring and glared at Voldemort.

And the other was Draco. Looking up through the flickering miasma that obscured her vision, Narcissa saw a net of silvery strands swirling out from Harry and aiming for Draco. In the face of such a crushing will as this, Harry reached first to protect his lover, lending such strength as would enable him to keep his feet.

Whether Draco knew that net of will was there or not, Narcissa didn't know. But he made the best use of it he could, drawing his wand and pointing it at Voldemort. A curse blasted from the tip, aimed straight at the Dark Lord.

"Lucius," said Voldemort lazily.

Her husband moved in between them and took the curse, which opened a long, bloody cut down his right arm. And the expression on Draco's face when he saw what he'd done to his father—a traitor and the man who had hurt both him and her, but still, his father—made Narcissa's heart vibrate like a struck bell.

It also seemed to weaken Draco's resolve to remain standing. He wavered, and nearly knelt. Harry hissed. The power flowing from him grew steadier, and Draco climbed back to his feet.

"It does not matter, Harry," said Voldemort, and the magic that surrounded him _made_ his words truth. "What does it matter? You know that you will never leave this room with all of them alive. I can take Severus through his Dark Mark. I will break your adoptive Black. Your Weasleys, outside the house, are already mine, choking moment by moment on the thick air. Your little Light witch and your small Dark wizard cannot effectively fight me." He flashed Narcissa a smile that made the air burn and red afterimages burst in front of her eyes. "As for Mrs. Malfoy, I will have her husband rape her. It is a fitting end to such love as they once bore."

Harry breathed out, "And Draco?"

"Draco." The snake around his waist pivoted that way, and Voldemort gave a smile. It was wrong, Narcissa thought, a torture for any mother to have to see her son eyed in such a way. "He shall die inch by inch, Harry, and his magic will be mine. Meanwhile, his mind will be broken and twisted by the Imperius Curse until he knows nothing but pain and suffering." A delicate pause. "Of course, yield and come with me now, and you may spare him that fate, not to mention all those whom you love."

_It is a trap, _Narcissa thought, fighting to move her hand and close it around her wand. _Do not listen to him, Harry._

And it seemed that Harry was not going to. He snarled, a noise that did not sound human, and his snakes appeared around the Dark Lord, attacking him with steel fangs and wide-distended jaws.

"These are the pets that you used to defeat my ancestor's shade?" Voldemort asked. "Impressive. But not impressive enough, I am afraid."

Narcissa felt him sweep the snakes from existence, swallowing Harry's magic. Harry staggered. Voldemort gave a low laugh, his snake's gaze fixed on his heir. Harry gritted his teeth and lifted a hand to his forehead, where his scar had begun to bleed.

Narcissa felt the pressure on her mind ease a little. Once again, she tried to move her hand towards her wand.

She quickly saw that she wasn't the only one who had decided to use the Dark Lord's distraction against him. Draco lifted his head slightly, and his eyes fluttered closed, in the slack expression that Narcissa knew meant he was trying to use his possession gift.

Voldemort stiffened, and then let out a shriek. He whirled around, however, and the rage burning on his face told Narcissa that he was not under Draco's control.

Draco choked as invisible fingers gripped his throat and urged his head backward. So fast did it tilt that for a moment, the worst moment of her life, Narcissa feared his neck was broken.

But then she realized it was not, because Draco's eyes still focused and still blazed defiance, and Voldemort whispered, "You will pay for that, child, pay with your blood and your sanity. But your magic, first of all." And Narcissa felt the gullet of his gift opening, preparing to swallow the power Draco had been born with and worked so hard to develop.

Harry snatched the ring from the anchor-stone with a yank, a yell, and a terrific flash of light. Voldemort turned towards him, snarling.

Narcissa knew the distraction was only minor. The Dark Lord would recover himself in a moment, and Harry would give up the ring to save Draco. Her son was more important to him than a piece of metal. It was entirely possible that Draco was more important to him than the fate of the world.

_As it should be._

Narcissa studied Harry's face in that moment that seemed to go on forever, as Voldemort held Harry's lover and Harry held Voldemort's Horcrux, and green eyes and serpentine eyes regarded one another. She saw the fierce, the drowning love in Harry's expression, the rage and hatred he only felt towards those who might hurt Draco, and knew that if anyone could guarantee her son protection and a happy life after this moment, it would be Harry.

But after this moment, the balance would tilt, and Voldemort would win, because none of them had been able to guess how powerful he would be, that there was this level of magic in the world.

And in this moment, he was distracted, and his hold had lifted from Narcissa's heart and mind and hand.

She turned and fixed her eyes on her son as she drew her wand. Even choking, Draco looked more alive than Lucius did at that moment. His face shone with fury, and he was working furiously, throat and eyes alike, obviously trying to get past whatever barrier the Dark Lord had put in place and use his possession gift again.

Narcissa felt a deep peace moving through her. If she tried to interfere and free Draco, she would not succeed, and Voldemort would probably kill her.

But there was one thing she could do, one thing that would change this horrific balance, and, hopefully, make Harry react faster to the sudden change than Voldemort would.

She loved Draco, because he was her son. She loved Harry, for making Draco so happy. She fixed her mind on that, on the shining star of that, and not on the suspicion whispering in the back of her mind, that perhaps this was the vengeance of the broken threefold oath she had sworn. She had said she would bring Bellatrix to death, and she had not.

But she would never know the truth of that, and she did not wish to think of it now.

Warmth, affection, devotion spread through her, and to those rippling emotions she dedicated her death, the willing sacrifice.

"_Avada Kedavra,_" she whispered.

The Killing Curse rose from her wand and struck her. She was aware of figures moving, lunging, whirling, and of at least one voice calling her name. She did not look up at them, but faced death calmly, eyes open, and met it as it came.

Narcissa Malfoy died loving.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Lucius saw his wife commit suicide.

And his outraged love rose, roaring, screaming, a whirling flood that bore the last chains of his hatred aside.

He was free.

He rolled over, painfully, well-aware that the bloodied curse wound on his upper arm would keep him from using the limb effectively, and tossed his wand to his other hand. Quickly, knowing what he had to do, and not listening to the voice that screamed in the back of his head, he aimed at the snake around the Dark Lord's waist, the one that allowed him to see.

He whispered the Severing Curse, and the snake flew apart in bloody chunks and died. Meanwhile, the screaming in the back of his head continued.

_Narcissa, Narcissa, Narcissa._

Awkwardly, he planted his knees beneath him and struggled to his feet. Voldemort was screaming in a high-pitched voice, half-yell and half-hiss, and it would not be long before he reoriented himself and decided what he had to do. But Lucius again knew what _he_ had to do, and would not let the moment escape.

He came to his wife's body, and gathered her up, her blonde hair tumbling loose about her neck, her face slack and peaceful. Her wand fell from her hand. Lucius hesitated a moment, then gathered it up with a muttered Levitation Spell, at the same time as he cast a Lightening Charm on Narcissa's corpse.

And all the while the voice sang in the back of his mind.

_Narcissa, Narcissa, Narcissa._

Bitterness was flooding through him like corroding acid or poison, that it had taken him _this_ long to awaken and realize his love was stronger than his hatred, that he had faced his wife and son in battle and seen her die before he could rend himself free. But he knew that he was beyond the clutch of Voldemort's slavery ever again. He hated even the Dark Lord less than he loved his wife.

_Had_ loved her, for she was beyond his reach now.

He held her close, and turned to see what would happen, what miracle she had bought with her death.

_Narcissa, Narcissa, Narcissa._

The room filled with sweet thunder.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry heard Draco scream Narcissa's name, and a moment later he saw the green light flash, heard the calm curse, even as he had more than three years ago when Sirius committed suicide in the same way and for the same reason.

Death out of love. A willing sacrifice.

The soft buzz of the Unassailable Curse around the Horcrux in his hand vanished.

Harry saw Voldemort's snake cleft apart in the next instant, and the Dark Lord was maddened, turning, trying to find a way to see, his magic rearing and lashing back and forth like trees in a storm, without direction.

Harry could not listen to his own pain. There was no time. He knelt, clutching the ring close, remembering what Regulus had said he needed to do once the willing sacrifice was accomplished. Drain the Horcrux's magic, drain the bit of Voldemort's soul inside it, as he had swallowed Tom Riddle and unraveled the shard lurking inside the locket. He gripped the Peverell ring firmly, and drove his _absorbere_ ability like a knife into the stone, striking it and splitting it apart.

The ring foamed and crackled with dark lightning. Harry was preparing himself for the same blast of foulness that he remembered from the Chamber of Secrets and the Shrieking Shack, and was unprepared for the burst of pain that filled his hand instead.

He stared down through eyes gone suddenly blurry. The strip of silver that separated the stone of the ring from the gold had unfolded, revealing itself as a tiny serpent, and the serpent had bitten his right hand on the web of skin between his thumb and forefinger.

A ripple of poison spread from the bite, moving upwards, turning the skin black and spongy as it did so, seaming it with cracks that leaked white and green fluids. One moment, and it was solely located on the web of skin; the next, it had spread to cover the whole of the back of his hand.

Only then did Harry feel the sweet thunder of the prophecy in the room, and remember the second verse of the chant Trelawney had given him.

_The first thing is the smallest thing,_

_But the center of many hearts still._

_But, oh, savior, watch for the sting,_

_For the smallest things may kill._

His vision whirled, and darkened, and then expanded in odd ways. Harry found himself standing on a flat plain of black sand beneath an arching gray sky. Behind him were the glittering silver pools of his Occlumency, the foliage of his emotions, the steel skeleton of his rebuilt mind.

In front of him, regarding him with burning eyes, was Tom Riddle, looking a few months older than the memory Harry had seen in the diary, and far madder and more dangerous.

"Your body is going to be mine," he hissed, and then he leaped forward, and so the battle began.


	43. The Angels of Our Better Natures

**Chapter Thirty-Three: The Angels of Our Better Natures**

Snape saw Harry fall.

The wave of blackness traveling up his right arm commanded his attention next, and he had to watch as the skin seamed with cracks, as liquids leaked down them, as Harry began to die of a particularly virulent poison that must be the mix of several different kinds of venom. Snape knew from the movement, at least, that the poison was making for his shoulder, and from there it would turn for his heart. If it reached his heart, then he was dead and the matter done with.

He saw the Dark Lord whirling in place, having felt the destruction of his Horcrux, and having not the slightest idea what to do next.

Snape made the decision he had to, and, instead of rushing at once to his son's side and cradling him in his arms, he drew his wand the way Lucius had and cast the one spell that would do the most good then. When the Dark Lord was in a mood such as this, balanced between one emotion and the next, a push in one direction or the other could send him into the desired action. Snape had used this delicate balance to his advantage several times when he was still a Death Eater and wanted to get one of his rivals in trouble.

He cast a spell that allowed him to imitate another's voice, and called out in the unmistakable tones of Mad-Eye Moody, "Harry! Are you in here, lad? We've got the ward-stones that you asked for, the pieces of the Stone that are immune to magic!"

Voldemort snarled silently, and Snape caught a glimpse of his ruined eyes. He waited tensely. It was possible that he had sent Voldemort into rage instead of caution, and that the Dark Lord would attack now. If he did, they were all dead, but that had been true from the moment he entered the Gaunt house.

But he fell from the horns of his dilemma into cautious fear, as Snape had hoped he would. He spread his arms and half-bowed his head, and vanished with a crackle of magic so deep it wasn't the crack of Apparition.

Snape let out a harsh breath, and then permitted himself to rush to Harry's side, only to find that Regulus had already rushed there and taken him up, being careful not to jostle his right arm. Currently, he was prying at Harry's right hand, trying to make him let go of the Peverell ring he clutched.

"Do _not_," Snape said harshly, and tapped Regulus's hand with his wand, making him snatch it away and glare. "Otherwise it shall poison you, too, and I don't fancy having two patients to treat."

Regulus's eyes widened with just the slightest bit of hope. "Do you think you can cure him, then?"

Snape's mouth twisted in a dark curve, but he could hardly keep the sarcasm out of his voice. "Why else did I become a Potions Master, if not to brew antivenin for recklessly careless boys on the edge of death?" He turned away from the argument that Regulus would have made at that, and scanned the room. His gaze alighted first on Rosier-Henlin and Gloryflower, hovering near the back of the room and clutching their left arms. Their lightning bolt scars would hurt, he knew, telling them too late, futilely, that Harry was in danger.

"Go collect the Weasleys," he snapped, and they scurried out the door, seeming happy for the task.

He looked then at the Malfoys. Lucius stood with Narcissa in his arms, her long hair draping his shoulders and extending almost to the floor in a curtain of gold. Snape stared into his eyes, using a swift Legilimency probe, and managed to satisfy himself that this was not another plant of the Dark Lord's. Even if Voldemort had told Lucius to rejoin their side on the incredible chance of Narcissa's suicide, he would not have wanted to encourage such a thing, Snape thought, not when a suicide like this meant the possible destruction of a Horcrux. He would have commanded Lucius to stop her, first.

Draco stood next to his father, the back of one hand laid on his mother's cheek, his face older than Snape had ever seen it. He would have thought the chisel of this pain had chipped away the final part of the boy's childhood, did he not think Draco still had an immense amount of childishness to lose.

"We are going to Hogwarts," Snape said, and the sound of his voice, like a dry branch snapping, made Lucius look up at him. Snape made sure to hold his eyes as he continued. "We will be Apparating to the Hogsmeade road and going straight to the hospital wing, with both Harry and your wife. Do you understand, Lucius?"

Lucius, to his credit, simply nodded instead of protesting. Draco opened his mouth as if he would do it for his father, but Snape didn't care, didn't have the time to attend to the devastation in Draco's eyes and on his face. He was already whirling and striding through the door of the shack, Regulus following closely behind him with Harry clutched in his arms.

They could return to Hogwarts, but while the rest of them went to the hospital wing, Snape would go to his lab, there to brew the potion that would have to race against time and the blackness creeping up Harry's right arm, and save his son's life.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry floated just beneath the surface of the silver Occlumency pool, and listened to Tom Riddle's footsteps coming nearer and nearer.

"Come out, come out, Harry," the older boy called, giving away both his impatience and his position through his voice. Harry would have smiled if he had considered the battle as anything but intolerably serious. "You know that mine is the stronger magic, and mine is the possession gift. I promise you that I can kill quickly when I want to, though. Come to me, and I'll give you one of those quick deaths."

Harry stayed where he was. He didn't have to breathe in this world, something he didn't think Tom Riddle had yet realized; he was still treating the mental battlefield more as if it were a physical one. Well, and why not? He couldn't have had much contact with other minds for the last few decades he'd been cooped up in the Peverell ring.

A shadow passed above Harry, a leg reaching out to stride over the pool. He gathered his strength, forced away thoughts of what was happening to Draco right now and how his body was probably dying from the bite of the snake on the ring, and exploded upward.

Tom swore in startlement as Harry grabbed him and threw him down, his magic writhing around him at the same time to form chains out of the ground around the pool. The chains had jade links and metal cuffs at the end, two of which Harry managed to snap into place around Tom's ankles before he reacted.

He extended one hand in front of him and snarled a single word Harry didn't recognize, with a lot of _r_ sounds in it. Harry bent double as someone invisible punched him in the solar plexus, and he had to roll away from Tom, hearing the other boy's laughter ringing in his ears.

"This is a nice body that you have here, Harry," the bastard said, his voice flavored with glee. "I rather like it. I'll enjoy possessing it when you're gone. I wonder how long I should leave it before I tell them who I really am? I can counter the poison that's killing you, of course, and reclaim the use of my right arm, but I can't do that too obviously. Hmmm."

Harry forced himself to ignore the pain. This was the kind of battle he'd trained for under Lily, in some ways; at least, he had the experience to know he shouldn't do things like waste his breath in talking. And no matter how confident Tom was, he was chained now, and he didn't have enough control of Harry's mind yet to imagine his bonds unraveling with a thought.

Harry scrambled back to one knee and imagined an attack coming from above, as he had come from beneath a moment ago. A flight of birds, all of them toothed and lizard-tailed as was the bird that symbolized the connection between them, swooped down towards Tom, shrieking.

He flung out a hand, hissing another spell, and the birds turned to floating masses of charred flesh and feathers.

This time, Harry called on his memory of Indigena's vines that had held him helpless in the graveyard almost two Midwinters ago, asking them to writhe up and coil around Tom's wrists, binding his magic and keeping him from using it against the next weapons that Harry might lift. They came out, but Tom charred them in turn. Harry snarled in frustration.

The beetle-black eyes fixed on his, smiling. Or maybe they weren't beetle-black, Harry thought, but bottle-green, a slightly darker shade of his own. They shared so much else, why not this? "Did you think that you could fight me, Harry?" Tom whispered. "We are much the same, you and I. And I am more determined than you will ever be, Darker. You cannot fight the Dark with Light, Harry, but that's what you're trying to do. No wonder it isn't working!"

He reached out and drew a line in the air with his finger, laughing. Harry felt a burning wound open on his forehead, parallel to the lightning bolt scar, and knew it would continue down, severing his eyelid, blinding him in his right eye, and carving his face apart. Tom could call on things like that, wounds that were fatal or disfiguring, and Harry couldn't.

Or, rather, he wasn't doing it right now.

He plunged his face into the cool dirt that formed the "ground" of his mind, and rubbed out the pain and the spell. Tom made a disappointed cluck like a mother hen who'd lost a chick. Harry, meanwhile, was considering what he now suspected to be the truth, at least if Tom was telling it.

_Why should he? You know he's a liar. He's always been._

_Except when he gloats, _he thought then, remembering back to when Voldemort had happily told him the truth about cutting off his hand in the graveyard, and actually kept his word about the thirteen days he would wait before attacking Hogwarts on Midsummer. Voldemort lied when he had need of it, but he preferred to tell the truth when he thought that would cause despair in his enemies.

And Tom Riddle thought this would cause despair in Harry. He hadn't had the chance to get to know Harry very well yet, certainly not as well as the elder Voldemort, and so he didn't know, couldn't know, that Harry had the weapon to make his taunt a reality.

_If I dare to use it._

Harry did not want to, any more than he wanted to imagine a gruesome death for an intruder in his mind. It was not the way his thoughts ran, not the way his imagination worked. It—he did not wish to use his magic that way.

And then a wound opened on his back, and hands dug in with the seeming intention of taking out his internal organs, and Harry realized he might have to change his mind—and quickly.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Draco followed his father to the hospital wing, but, once there, it was too hard watching Madam Pomfrey attend to Harry and ignore Narcissa. Of course, he knew it was only right and proper, and he was frantically worried for Harry, too—the double emotional wounds felt as if they were draining him of any chance of happiness—but it just reinforced the impression that his mother was dead, and didn't allow him to escape from it.

He stood there, head hanging, unable to muster any will to move past the pain. Narcissa had always been part of his life. Every time he thought of what he should do next, it included an orientation towards her, if only assuming that she would be there somewhere, and he could call on her if he needed her help. Knowing she wasn't there, now, was like hitting a wall with his head over and over again.

"Draco."

Draco turned, blinking, and saw his father standing there. His gaze was steady, but compelling, and Draco knew what he was asking. Reconciliation, shared grief, a talk of _some_ kind. Or to go to a room where Madam Pomfrey, and even Regulus, wouldn't stare at him as if he were a Death Eater come again.

Slowly, Draco decided that he could do this. He nodded, and moved past Lucius, motioning for him to follow.

Narcissa did not follow them.

Draco glanced back at her once, and saw her still face, and her rippled hair, a bit darker than sunshine, and then resolutely faced forward and decided that he wasn't going to look again.

He led Lucius to one of the classrooms that usually served as a place to practice dueling spells. It wasn't occupied today, thank Merlin, and Draco turned around to face his father when they'd shut the door behind him.

"I don't know what you want," Draco said bluntly. "I don't know what you expect of me. But you should know one thing. We're going to have a _proper_ funeral for Mother. She's going to be buried with all the honor that befits a death like that. And if you say otherwise, I'll kill you where you stand."

He honestly felt as if he could do it, too. The magical strength he'd honed and sharpened in preparation, as he thought, for defending Harry while he retrieved the Horcruxes was swimming to the surface now, focusing on Lucius. He could open his mouth, and the words _Avada Kedavra_ would come forth, and he could slay his father. He almost thought it would be better that way. It would solve the wretched question of what to do with Lucius, at any rate.

"She always wanted a Malfoy funeral," Lucius said calmly. "To be buried like one of us, not burned as a Black. Unless you think that would not do enough honor to her and her death."

He wasn't fighting, Draco realized then, dimly. He wasn't saying that Draco couldn't have the funeral he wanted for his mother. He was agreeing. He was—he was honoring Narcissa the way that a loving husband would have done.

Draco took a staggering step backwards, barely remembering to flick his wand so that he could conjure a chair in time to meet his sudden impulse to sit. He sank into it and tilted his head back, harsh laughter bubbling past his lips. He felt Lucius staring at him. He didn't care.

"Draco," his father said sharply. "Stop. You are growing hysterical."

"I don't fucking care," Draco pointed out, and leaned his forehead on his hand. "I just—_damn you, damn you, damn you!_ You loved her, and you could never tell her that while she was _alive_, could you? It was only when she died that you broke free, a few moments too late to tell her that, oh, by the way, you actually have a loving husband, Narcissa. Everything's too late with you, Father, isn't it? Curdled, half-baked, half-arsed."

"Draco, I will not—"

Draco slammed his hand down on the chair's arm and leaned forward, glaring at his father. "Tell me why I should let you have _any_ say in Mother's funeral, dear father," he whispered. "Tell me why, for that matter, we should let you back into the Alliance of Sun and Shadow, when you've caused enough trouble for any seven wizards. Explain to me why you tore free from your chains when you know what's going to happen now. Honoria Pemberley could demand a severed leg in return for the one you cut off her, and she would be within her rights. Tell me why I should treat you like a father, Lucius, and the husband of my mother, and not like an enemy combatant."

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

Snape held the smells of the poison leaking from Harry's arm in his mind as he tossed a handful of powdered moonstone into the cauldron.

_It smells of almonds. There is cyanide within it, but diluted, so that it will not kill in the first few moments. And there is arsenic, too. That smell, I know. _

A handful of powdered bicorn horn followed the moonstone, and then pounded heal-all leaves, and then crushed violet petals. Snape worked on the level of instinct, not questioning what his hands added, or how much. He knew the amounts and the ingredients would have to be perfect. The venom was advancing up Harry's arm towards his heart in a wave of blackness. When it reached his heart, then the heart would stop, and the chance to save his son would be gone. The damage was slowing as it spread, because it had more skin to cover, but it was advancing even still, even now.

He spun to the left, snatched a vial of healing potion off his prepared shelves, and tossed it into the cauldron with the rest. He heard a spark behind him, and a soft hiss, but he smelled no released, poisonous fumes. That was good. He did not have time to deal with them.

Water went in next, enough water to fill the cauldron nearly to overflowing, and Snape chanted a purification spell only after it had thoroughly mixed with the other ingredients, so that it would add no contamination of its own. He dived among his stores, searching for the bottle he had created more than ten years ago.

_Yes. Yes, there it is._

In a glass vial hung a single sparkling hair, found in the Forbidden Forest, caught on a branch—a hair from the tail of a unicorn. If he had taken it by force from the beast, he would not have dared to add it. It would have increased the effectiveness of the poison, instead of healing Harry. Just as there was a cost to drinking unicorns' blood, there was a cost to using other pieces of the wondrous creatures stolen from them, instead of picked up from the careless or the dead ones.

He broke the vial and drifted the hair into the cauldron. It settled with a faint glow of light, and for just a moment, the noise of bells and a sensation of perfect peace came to Snape.

"Lie there," he told it, knowing he sounded ridiculous addressing a potion ingredient and not caring, "and heal the man who freed you, all of you."

One more whirl and a stride back to the shelves, and he found the final thing he was looking for, the thing his instincts, not presenting their reasoning to the higher brain, told him to add. A bright, battered feather, a phoenix feather, the very same one Dumbledore had given him decades ago when he welcomed an embittered, exhausted young Severus Snape into the Order of the Phoenix.

The feather came to rest on the top of the water. At once, it burst into shimmering white fire, fighting the liquid and boiling some of it away. Snape scooped up a handful of water and dumped it over the plume, and the flames subsided with a little hiss. But they had served to boil some of the potion and mix the individual ingredients in it more closely, which was, so far as Snape could tell, what they were supposed to do.

Doubts tried to creep in—doubts and rationality—but Snape did not let them. He seized a glass stirring rod and dipped it into the cauldron, beginning to brew. He had his mind fixed on the result—a potion that could save Harry from the poison killing him—and he did not care how he got there.

His hands took over, the knowledge spreading out from his arms and not his thoughts. Snape let them do so.

SSSSSSSSSSS

Harry rolled over, stealing the victory from the brass-clawed creature Tom had conjured to plague him, and stifled the temptation to burst into phoenix song. If Tom was right, then he couldn't fight him with Light magic. He knew where he had to go, knew what he had to do.

Of course, it was hard, knowing that he might defeat the madman trying to possess his body only to unleash a worse darkness on the world.

But he had to try. Draco needed him to come out of this mental landscape, this battle, alive, so that he could comfort him.

Harry dug his hands into the rich soil and snapped his fingers around the clods of earth he held. The ground quivered, and then sank away beneath Tom, dumping him on his arse. Harry heard his cry, more startled and indignant than hurt.

At the same time, Harry melted the chains that held him, and scrambled to his feet.

It would have to be a race. He would have to convince Tom that he was so frightened he was simply fleeing from him, without looking where he was going, and make him incensed enough to follow along without trying to get ahead of Harry. Dumping him on his arse should do that, Harry hoped. Voldemort had never been at his most rational when he was feeling laughed at.

Sure enough, there came a surge of darkness and wind after him, letting Harry know Tom was on his trail.

He ran, then. He flickered among the soft landscape of the Occlumency pools, dancing over their surfaces, feeling, now and then, a drowned emotion rising towards the surface, asking if he needed it, but dismissing the feeling each time. He leaped from branch to branch of the mighty tree that had the steel skeleton as its spine, and then ducked into the leaves while Tom cried in frustration behind him. He climbed higher and higher, and saw the rustling foliage part ahead of him, baring the way to the part of his mind he knew so little of and hated so much.

He turned the hatred into fear and sent it flowing behind him like a wind, and he felt Tom laughing, his confidence restored.

"I told you, Harry," he called, while he scrambled up a branch Harry had passed several minutes ago. "If you come to me, I'll give you a quick death, and you can be assured that I'll use your body well. It won't be as quick as it would have been if you had just surrendered the first time I asked, but it will still be swift. And then you won't be alive to see what I do with your boyfriend." Another snort of laughter, turning colder and higher-pitched as it went, as if the exercise were moving this shard of Tom Riddle closer and closer to his future self.

Harry closed his eyes for a moment. _Draco._

But he did not have to listen, and so he did not. He ran, and the leaves beneath his feet firmed and flattened and changed into rocks. Now he was pelting across flagstones, heading for the wide fence that reared at the very end of this plain.

A thought, and the fence expanded, blocking his way, though in reality Harry could slip past it and into another part of his mind if he wanted. He projected panic, though, and ran back and forth along the fence as if it were a barrier he didn't know how to get past.

"There you are, Harry."

He whirled. Tom Riddle was not far behind him, and coming fast, a sly smile on his face that didn't work well with the dirt smudged there. Harry held back the impulse to laugh. He knew well enough that if he started now, he wouldn't stop. The emotions about Narcissa's death and Draco's grief were fighting under the surface, trying to emerge any way they could.

Harry stamped on them, and then shrank back against the fence as Tom Riddle came closer and closer.

"No place left to run?" the other wizard whispered mockingly. "No way left to fight me? Well, I'm pleased to see that you recognize your own helplessness after all, and your fitting end as a vessel for me."

Harry panted, and then let the breath out as a sharp whine. It masked the sounds gathering behind him.

Tom Riddle came closer and closer, and finally halted in front of him. His eyes were dark and expressive, and deep green after all, if one looked closely enough. His face shone with enjoyment.

"I'll make you more powerful than you've ever been, Harry, I promise," he whispered, and reached out as if to caress Harry's cheek.

Harry seized his hand, pulling him close, and then reached out and wrapped his other arm around Tom's torso. The other boy, startled, struggled against him, but he didn't have enough of a purchase to resist. Harry made the fence vanish, and then he threw them both forward, aiming for where the fence had been.

They sank into black water, into the part of his mind where Harry kept the darkest part of himself. He whistled.

And the part of him that desired nothing more than to rend and tear and dominate came to him.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

"I have changed," Lucius said.

"Really." Draco felt incredulity, and then indignation, go through him like a spear of glass. "And I should believe that?" His father nodded slightly, never taking his eyes from his face. Draco laughed again, but managed to cut it off this time. "Why?"

"Because I have been a slave for the past four months," said Lucius, and his voice sharpened with an emotion Draco could believe out of him: bitterness. "I have seen what it cost me not to have enough—love—to resist my hatred." At least he still grimaced when saying the word, Draco thought. He would have been convinced this was not Lucius if he didn't. "And though I came too late to let Narcissa know what she meant to me, that does not mean I need to live my life in regret. I would rather do something else with it."

"And what is that?" One wrong word, Draco promised himself, _one_, and he would kill him. This was the man who had tried desperately to control Draco's own life, to prevent his wife from leaving him when she'd had enough, to imprison Hawthorn Parkinson and then to wreck Harry's rebellion. Draco could not trust his promises, and he certainly did not trust Lucius's own apparent need to make up for his crimes.

"Make up for what happened."

Draco snorted.

"I can," said Lucius, not wavering, either in his stare or in his body. "I can do this, if you will permit it, Draco."

Draco rubbed his hands against his legs. He had never thought he would receive submission from his father, not in his wildest dreams. It felt—wrong. But, he reminded himself, he was the head of the Malfoy line now, and he was dealing with an erring member of his family.

That told him how to act. He lifted his head, and recalled what he'd learned of the pureblood rituals for this in his mad rush, during the summer after his third year and later, to educate himself in what should have been his heritage so that he could catch up with Harry. "And what will you do, in the name of the Dark?" he asked, his voice already firmer than it had been.

Lucius recognized the formula. His eyes flashed once, but Draco thought it was with satisfaction rather than anger.

And then he knelt, but with one knee only, which was the posture of qualified submission, rather than the absolute, dog-like one he'd taken at Voldemort's side. He spread his arms, bowing his head so that his curtain of long blond hair partially shielded his face. He murmured, "Is it to be up to me to name the penances for my crimes?"

Draco considered rising to his feet, but decided that he liked sitting. It increased the chair's resemblance to a throne, and, he hoped, impressed Lucius with how much he needed to make up for. "It is," he said. "I will not name penances that would not go deep enough, would not make you truly sorry."

Lucius nodded. "Very well. Then, for the crime of not acknowledging your own adulthood, I will live on your sufferance. Whatever food I eat, whatever bed I sleep in, whatever breath I draw, comes from you and you alone. Should you require my life from me, I will give it, without hesitation or question."

Draco hissed between his teeth, nearly amused in spite of himself. It was a contract that tied him as deeply to Lucius as it tied Lucius to him. While Lucius would have to beg if his son declared it so, it also meant that if he starved or suffered, it would be Draco's fault.

But it was also the utmost price he could pay for lacking respect for his son, and therefore Draco could only ask a lesser one, if he challenged it. "That will be acceptable," said Draco. "And for your crimes against Hawthorn Parkinson, an ally who had never done you harm?"

"I will get her back from the Dark Lord."

Draco narrowed his eyes. He knew how many sources of hatred tied the werewolf to her new service: Lucius, of course, but also, from what Harry had told him, Indigena Yaxley, and the Aurors she had helped to torture and kill in the raid on Tullianum. Draco did not see how it was possible for her to return.

"You truly think you can manage that?" he murmured. The one making reparations, as Lucius was, was not allowed to choose a task he knew he would fail at.

"Of course, or I would not have offered," said Lucius, tilting his head to the side to look at Draco again through his curtain of hair.

_If he can do it, then Harry would value it more than any other price he could name. _"That will be acceptable," Draco repeated. He felt Lucius relax. _He must really think he can do it, strange as that seems. _"And what about your crimes against Harry?"

"My fortune and my magic are his to command," said Lucius, without a blink. "I shall become a Squib if he so desires it."

Draco narrowed his eyes. That threw the decision back on Harry, but he could hardly dispute it, because that was the punishment Harry had said he would offer someone who broke the oaths of the Alliance of Sun and Shadow in the first place. "Bastard," he accused.

"The son of a bastard, perhaps, if my father was truly born of a Mudblood woman," said Lucius, his voice inexpressibly calm. "But in and of myself? I think not. My parents were wed."

Draco gritted his teeth, and did not respond to that. "You are his, then? As much as you are mine?"

"Secondary only to your claims are his claims on me," Lucius said, his voice polished and perfect.

Draco sat back, thinking. He could not truly think of anything else that Lucius needed to atone for, since his other crimes had been committed under Voldemort's command. If Narcissa had still been alive, she would have the right to claim her share from him, but—

_If Narcissa were alive, many things would be different._

"Stand," said Draco abruptly. "For my part, you are accepted back into the Malfoy line. But I don't know that Harry will let you live, let alone accept you back into his alliance."

"I serve at his pleasure," Lucius said quietly, and climbed to his feet.

Draco leaned back in his chair and gave in to his curiosity, since if he didn't, he feared the tears lurking at the back of his eyes would rush him. "Why would you? You said that you spent four months in slavery. Are you really all that eager to spend more months in service to us, to make up for what you've done?"

"I chose this," Lucius answered. "That makes it different." He cocked his head, his face altering. "And now, Draco, you should mourn."

"Excuse me?"

"You know what your mother was," Lucius said in a hiss. "Far more than the woman who bore you. The finest witch I ever knew. The woman who had the strength and courage to give up her life for a _reason_, not thrashing in a futile fight against old age or stabbed from behind in battle. She lived and she died like a Dark pureblood, Draco, and it is not fitting that her son's face is free of tears when he thinks of her."

Draco turned his head away and closed his eyes, but it was too late; the sobs were already welling up. He stood, prepared to leave the room. He could not show such weakness in front of Lucius.

And then he realized that Lucius, too, wept, but silently, the tears falling down his face like drops melting off an icicle, his eyes wide and frozen and staring between them. Draco hesitated for a long moment between his father and the door.

Then he turned around, and clasped Lucius's hand with a rough motion.

Lucius drew him close, and held him there, not exactly as a father held a son—not yet, they had not come back to that yet—but as a man might hold another while they mourned for a woman they had both loved.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

The water sloshed nearly to the rim of the cauldron, and then fell back again. It was now purple, now blue, now green, all deep and jeweled colors. Certainly, it was the most _beautiful_ potion Snape had ever brewed.

He did not attempt to stop the thoughts, or sink them into his Occlumency pools, even though he could have. He was in full flight through the creative part of his brain that usually helped him brew potions, but here, he was making it work at high speed, the way it usually did only when offering theories.

His hands flew, now stirring counterclockwise, now flicking his wand to add a heating or a cooling or a stabilizing spell that his mind told him was needed just then, now bending to add a puff of his breath or a strand of hair to the potion. He did not question his instincts. He did not try to stop, or slow down. He trusted his intuition to bear him along, and it did, steady beneath him as a galloping horse, guiding him over the jumps he could not have taken alone.

The notions of what he had to do swung around a different path, and Snape dipped off a good portion of the potion in a ladle and then let it drop back. The liquid puffed and turned red.

Red as blood, red as the blood that would have to spill if Harry died from the poison creeping up his arm…

And then he was over that, past it, soaring beyond it, forcing himself to concentrate on the potion, and not whether it would work or whether Harry would live or die. His hand moved in a smooth arc, dropping the first new ingredient for some time, a quetzal feather, into the potion.

The liquid shuddered as if in delight, and then stilled, and became utterly calm, glass-like, smooth. Snape knew what was next. The potion was ready. It would heal the corruption, drive back the venom, because it had to and that was what it was made for.

He Levitated the cauldron with a flick of his wand, and then guided it out the door of his lab and towards the hospital wing. He did not let the surface so much as tremble. It would not do to let that happen, no. So it was not going to happen. His gaze fixed on the potion, and by sheer force he did not let the cauldron even bob so as to jostle it.

He entered the hospital wing, and his focused silence was enough to make Madam Pomfrey and Regulus, both still crowded around Harry's bed, move aside. Snape set the cauldron floating above Harry's head, and then said, in a voice that he made sure would not ripple across the surface, "Open his mouth."

Regulus scrambled to do so. One moment he might have bumped the cauldron, but Snape lifted it higher, and then lowered it again once Regulus was out of the way. Snape then tipped the potion.

It flowed over Harry, splashing in his hair, flowing into his mouth, soaking his corrupted arm, which was now black and spongy flesh almost to the shoulder. The liquids soaking from the cracks in the skin hissed mightily, and a cloud of steam surged up. Luckily, Snape didn't need to tell Madam Pomfrey to contain the fumes; her wand was already moving up and down and sideways in order to do so. And Regulus reached out through the flood of blood-like potion and massaged Harry's throat, making sure that he swallowed what got into his mouth. On and on the cascade went, until Harry was drenched.

Snape sat back when it was done, and made the surface of his mind serene and unrippled in and of itself with the help of his Occlumency pools. Now came the time to use them, when without them he would panic.

"What happens now?" Regulus whispered.

"Now?" Snape lifted an eyebrow, never taking his eyes from his son, who had started to shiver slightly. "Now, we wait."

SSSSSSSSSSS

Harry rolled, half-tossing Tom forward in the dark water, and then loosing him. He felt the creature that dwelt in the blackness, the _will_ of that blackness, reach forward and grasp him.

Then Harry struck for the surface. He heaved himself out on the stones next to the pool, already thinking that he should return to his body as soon as possible. He had to find out where Draco had gone, what had happened to him. Draco would need him now, he knew.

A splash from the pool attracted his attention, and Harry swung sharply around. Tom Riddle was already almost back onto the shore, soaking with the water as if with tar, but still alive and with a horrible expression on his face.

_What's the matter? _Harry thought frantically. _I know the darkness can destroy him. That's what it likes to do. Why isn't it—_

And then he remembered. When he had used this darkness against Voldemort, his own will had still had to direct it. Without him, it was nothing but a collection of all the foulness and the sadistic impulses present in him.

He choked back a sob, lunged forward, and grabbed Tom around the throat, squeezing firmly, bearing him back into the darkness.

Tom's eyes widened almost comically, and his hands flailed, trying to reach up and stop Harry. Harry concentrated, though, and a tentacle coiled around his waist from beneath the water.

Tom tried to speak, but he'd lost his breath. He choked. The darkness tugged on him, slowly eating him alive. Now and then he shuddered and screamed, and Harry surmised that came from the darkness getting a particularly good bite in.

He had to hold him there. He had to want to watch Tom Riddle in pain. He had to want to watch him die.

Harry hesitated, and Tom surged back up again, nearly climbing out again as the darkness lost its strength. Harry swallowed another sob, and reminded himself that this desire to kill was him, too, part of him, and pressed down with all his strength, hearing his knuckles creak as his fingers tightened on the skin.

It was horrible, to watch Tom's face go blue, to hear the muffled screams he tried to make, and to watch more and more of his body slowly eaten alive by the creeping lake. Harry knew that, although he could not see the teeth rising and falling down there, he commanded them. They did what they did because he wanted them to do it.

And it was wonderful.

Harry couldn't deny the curl of dark satisfaction in his belly as he watched one of his enemies die so _easily._ No dancing around, no games of persuasion, no elaborate traps. Just the death, the chewing, and the absorption of the shard of soul into himself. He could drown the Darkness within his own Light if he wished, but what if he didn't want to? He could let it shine forth like a black diamond instead. It would hardly frighten away his allies, and many of those who opposed him already thought of him as a Dark wizard. They would hardly blink at having their opinions confirmed.

He leaned forward and strained, bearing Tom down.

And then he was gone, sliding violently beneath the surface, as the darkness ate him and then tried to swarm out further, and take over Harry's brain.

Harry reared like a wild horse, fighting back the darkness. Yes, it would feel good to let it go, and stop caring so _much_ about the consequences of his actions, and only love a few people, like Draco did, instead of everyone.

_Draco._

And Harry remembered who was at the center of his thoughts, the sanity of them, and clung to the image of his lover, using it to pull himself back from the selfish desire to give in. Draco had lost one of the few people in the world he loved. What he must be feeling now would be shattering. He needed Harry to come back and comfort him.

Darkness pivoted and turned all around him, and Harry blasted through it, and opened his eyes with a gasp.

He heard a _clang_ as his clenched fingers opened and the ring—harmless now, a drained and cracked Horcrux—fell to the floor. And then he caught a glimpse of Snape's face, in the moment before he was wrapped tight in his guardian's arms and held.

"The poison stopped," Snape whispered.

Harry tried to answer, he really did, but his right arm hurt like unholy fire, and he could only manage a choked cry. He glanced sideways, and grimaced. From shoulder to hand, his skin was black, spongy and soft, cracked, though the liquids were no longer leaking out of it as they had been.

Snape sat back, carefully. "We can save your arm," he told Harry, following his gaze. "But I don't know how long it will be until you have the full functioning of it back again."

"I got used to using only my right hand before," said Harry. "I'll get used to using just my left. Thank you for saving my life, sir." He held Snape's eyes in a moment so intense that Snape leaned away from him, looking shaken. Harry sat up, and ignored the screaming drag of his arm over the blankets. "Where's Draco?"

"With his father." Snape tried to press him back into the pillows. "Harry, you need to rest—"

"He needs me," said Harry, and waved his left hand, causing the blankets to rise and wrap around his right arm. It would do for a bandage until he had time to slow down and look for a proper one. "He just saw his mother die in front of him."

Snape's eyes fired with irritation. "And you just fought Tom Riddle in your mind, and—"

"And I'm _fine_," Harry pointed out. It wasn't as though any of them would ever know about the darkness he carried. He would have told them, just as he would have told them about so many things, if he could be sure they would listen in silence. But they would argue, he knew, just as they had argued after the strike at Cornwall, and arguments about his emotions wearied him to the bone. Besides, Draco needed his strength far more right now than Harry needed to lie back and contemplate, just as Connor had needed it after their parents were killed. "_Point Me_ Draco Malfoy," he added to the silver ring on his left hand, the one that Draco had given him for their first joining ritual.

The ring vibrated, and then tugged his hand in the direction of the hallway. Harry nodded, and climbed out of his bed.

"_Harry_—"

"_Thank you, sir_," Harry said, to make it clear that he didn't want to be ungrateful about Snape saving his life, he just had more important things to do right now, and then strode out the door. His arm hurt furiously. _Well, let it._

SSSSSSSSSSS

Draco lifted his head when the door opened. As long as Lucius was showing grief, he could, too, but he didn't want to do it in front of someone else.

Then he realized Harry stood there, and then Harry crossed the room and caught him close with both arms, and then he knew that he didn't have to put up the strong façade anymore. He caught Harry's left arm and drew it more firmly around him, letting his head fall back on his shoulder. He knew this mood of Harry's because he'd seen it with Connor after Lily and James died. Harry would kill to defend him. Right at the moment, nothing in the whole world was more important to him than Draco was, and that, _that_, was the balm Draco needed after seeing his mother die.

"I'm here, Draco," Harry whispered. "Whatever you need, whatever you want from me, I'm here to provide it."

"Don't kill Lucius right now," Draco whispered back. "Just send him away. And take me some place I can weep, Harry, and don't ever let me go."

"You have it," Harry said, and then he was being escorted away, down a hall that he knew would end in the Slytherin common room, where Harry would shield him from stares and whispers, and then their bedroom.

And then, there, he finally gave in and let himself truly weep, feeling Harry's fingers combing through his hair, hearing his voice whisper constantly into his ear.

"I'm so sorry, Draco. Whatever you need from me, you'll have it."


	44. Intermission: All Honor to the Brave

**Intermission: All Honor to the Brave**

Her Lord had already started creating another snake, brewing the flesh of his latest victims in a burrow beneath the burrow rather than adding it to his great pattern. Indigena stood waiting for a time, but, though he was blind again, he did not need her now; his magic worked through his other senses to let him know what to do, and his grim determination and the newly swallowed power would be the reasons he accomplished this.

Thus, she slipped quietly away and up to the surface, to the section of ground she'd begun to cultivate. Nowhere she lived was home without a garden.

The soil was thick with spells that she'd cast to hold back the October chill and the frosts and make the flowers bloom. She was using mostly magical plants, but even they were more responsive to the natural conditions around them than most wizards and witches realized. She so far had three rows of the vines that bound wandless magic, a few roses like the ones around her wrist whose thorns would send forth deadly poison, a cutting from her grandmother's bell-bush that would, focused well enough, eventually tell them the state of Harry's health and power, and another bush, her special child.

Indigena knelt down next to that one and ran her hand over the shiny green leaves, small and triangular. They unfolded with a rustle and swayed towards her. Indigena smiled, well-aware that tears were burning in her eyes and she did not know why.

_No. That is not true. You know why you weep. But you also know that it is not the reason that you _should _weep, because Lucius is gone from your master's side and one Horcrux is destroyed and that makes his defeat more certain. _

She ignored the thoughts, and held her palm over the center of the bush, where the stem whirled up into a flat expanse of wood. The bush danced as much as it could when rooted and with no wind, eager to do her bidding.

Indigena let out her breath. This would be the first test for her little one, and she wished she had been able to do it under less serious circumstances, because she wanted this to be perfect.

She called up images of white flowers, of water, of lovely women, and gave them all to the bush in a concentrated burst of thought.

The bush swayed back and forth, slowly at first, and then faster. Indigena felt it drawing on her magic, the leaves curling beneath her skin and connecting with the tendrils there. She petted the little one with her free hand, shutting her eyes as the communion grew deeper, richer, and flooded the world behind her skull with green. This was the kind of magic that most Dark wizards and witches would have disdained. But Indigena was perfectly capable of caring—just about plants rather than people, usually—and she was also capable of interchange.

When she opened her eyes, that tiny, flat expanse of wood had blossomed into a white flower. Give her little one time to grow, and it should be able to produce any flower, or any potion ingredient, that she asked it to and could clearly envision.

Carefully, Indigena plucked the flower, and held it up before her eyes. It was white, and drooped as though the weight of its own head was too much for it. It was a narcissus, supposedly born from a beautiful, shallow boy who fell in love with his own reflection in a pool of water and always bent down to see it.

But this narcissus was named for a woman who had not done that, who had sacrificed her life for her husband and son, and who had had no Mark to turn like a traitor from. She had been free to follow her own heart. And she had still done the honorable thing.

Indigena could not help but honor that in turn, enemy or not.

She held the narcissus to her mouth and blew on the stem. She longed to speak the words in her mouth aloud, but if her Lord should hear them, he would never understand.

_May this flower ease the grief of her passing, if such can be done. May it help her loved ones to remember that she died with honor, a chosen death, and that even the Dark can recognize such grace._

She held her hand flat again, and a wind not of her own making caught up the narcissus, whirling it around to show it to the world and demand that they admire its beauty, and then bore it away across the fields. Indigena watched it go, before she bowed her head and stood again. Her Mark was burning.

She was needed below.

The narcissus danced in the wind a moment longer, but vanished from sight before she did.


	45. Until the World is Changed

The title of this chapter comes from Tolkien, _The Return of the King_, specifically the description of Arwen's grave in Appendix A: "There at last when the mallorn-leaves were falling, but spring had not yet come, she laid herself to rest upon Cerin Amroth; and there is her green grave, until the world is changed, and all the days of her life are utterly forgotten by men that come after, and elanor and niphredil bloom no longer east of the sea."

**Chapter Thirty-Four: Until the World is Changed**

Snape knocked firmly on the door of Harry and Draco's bedroom. He understood the need for Harry to retreat with his partner, but they had been there for most of a day, with Harry appearing only briefly to fetch a few pillows from the Slytherin common room. Snape's other students had told him they thought Harry was Transfiguring the pillows into food.

"Harry?" he called, when only silence answered his knock. "Harry, open this door."

He did, but Snape almost wished he hadn't, once he saw him. The look in his eyes was deep, fierce, and quiet. He stood between Snape and a sight of the bed as if he intended to kill anyone who so much as crossed the threshold.

Snape let out a sigh. He was not—good—with grief. He could try to comfort his son, but almost surely, the words he offered would not be enough, and not what Harry needed to hear, and certainly not ones that would make him abandon the vigil he'd taken up over Draco.

"Lucius would like to see his son," he tried.

The sides of the doorway turned to ice.

Snape shook his head. _Draco must want to stay here. If he wished to leave, I can't believe Harry would be keeping him a prisoner. Perhaps using Lucius's name is not the best tactic, however. _

"He intends to invoke full Malfoy funeral rites," he told Harry, while trying to get a glimpse of his right arm. The potion he'd invented should make curing that arm possible, in a way that simple use of a bezoar would not have. But since Harry had it wrapped in blankets, Snape was not sure what the damage looked like now. "For that, he needs Draco's presence."

Harry went on staring at him, not blinking once.

And then Draco's voice, hoarse and filled with a sound of tears, called, "Let him in, Harry. If it concerns Narcissa, then I want to hear about it."

Harry at once stepped out of the way, arms folded. Snape didn't miss the wince he gave when his right limb crossed the left, and took the opportunity to ask, "How is the pain from your wound?"

"Tolerable." Harry's tone said he wasn't welcome to ask more. He watched Snape as if Snape were an intruder, someone who would hurt Draco—or, perhaps more accurately, someone who _might_ hurt Draco. It was the same expression he had worn around his brother when Lily and James paid the overdue toll of their lives. Draco was his whole world right now, and a threat would produce swift and immediate violence in retaliation, Snape could well believe.

"Will you let me look at it? After?"

"After the funeral? Yes. If Draco does not need my attention as much as he does now."

Snape was about to say that he'd meant after he was done speaking with Draco, but the boy pushed his head through the curtains of the bed just then, and Snape blinked and shut his mouth. Pain was still written in every corner of his face, and shimmered as tears in his eyes, but he _did_ look better. Wrapped in a cocoon of privacy and Harry's attention, it seemed he'd had the chance to do some healing.

"Full Malfoy funeral rites?" Draco whispered. "Are you _sure_ that's what he said, Professor Snape? Those words and no others?"

"Exactly those," said Snape, a bit startled. He hadn't thought that Lucius would do anything less for Narcissa, but it seemed that there was a significance to those words that he hadn't noticed, or known about. Draco looked to be deep in thought, at least, biting his lip and running one hand up and down his arm as though he were caressing a non-existent Dark Mark.

"Draco?"

Snape had to close his eyes, Harry's voice was that full of concern and tenderness. That was the way he wished he could speak to his son, and which he knew he would never be able to.

"I want to see him," said Draco abruptly, standing. "I don't know how—but yes, I suppose that's possible, if he chooses that combination of time and mourners. I just never knew—" He was silent again. Then he said, in the wondering tone of someone discovering something wonderful and long forgotten, "He must have really loved her."

"He did, Draco," Harry said, moving behind him and draping his arms over his shoulders. His eyes were fierce behind the tenderness, Snape thought, the eyes of a mother gryphon stooping over her chick. "He loves her even now. You want to see him?"

Draco nodded.

"_Point Me _Lucius Malfoy," Harry whispered, and the ring on his hand vibrated and tugged him in the desired direction.

Snape stood aside, because there seemed to be nothing else to do, and watched them go. Harry leaned confidingly close to Draco, at once guiding him and listening for more instructions. He seemed to be the taller, though really, Snape knew, they were of a height. Draco asked a question, and Harry responded at once, voice so low and soothing that Snape felt a shudder run down his spine.

It made a lovely picture, or at least it would have, if Harry's right arm were not still black and packed with corrupt flesh.

_If he would only let me look at it._

SSSSSSSSSSS

"Harry?"

"What?"

Draco loved that. He only had to ask a question, and it was answered at once, Harry _hearing_ him at once, because he was never more than a few inches from Draco at any point during this awful day.

"Do you think that full Malfoy funeral rites are the proper way to honor my mother?" They were outside the room where Harry's spell had said Lucius was now, and Draco wanted to delay just a moment before going inside. If nothing else, he would have to tell Harry to drop the arm wrapped warmly around his shoulders, because that would make him look weak in front of his father, and he didn't want to, not yet. He buried his head against Harry's shoulder.

"I don't know, Draco." Harry's voice practically crooned, and he was running a hand through Draco's hair, the way he knew Draco looked. "I don't know what the full rites entail."

"Oh." Sometimes Draco thought he had explained everything about his family to Harry, and that made it all the more surprising when they bumped up against a barrier of ignorance. "It involves burying her like someone born into the Malfoy family, instead of someone who married into it. Usually, the only people who get that treatment are heirs, or else, back when the family was bigger, cousins who were also spouses."

"I see." And Harry's voice was just as deep and just as serene as if he really had known about this all along, instead of only now learning it. Draco could love him for that, too, he thought, sleepily. Harry's presence over the last day had made his grief so much easier to bear. "Then, yes, Draco, I think it's appropriate. She made a sacrifice that any Malfoy should be proud to make, a sacrifice for the love of family and honor and her own principles. She died as she had lived. I think she's worthy to be laid with anyone you choose to lay her with, Malfoy or Black or any other pureblood family. None of them could be grander than she was."

"Thank you," Draco whispered, and nuzzled his cheek against Harry's hand. "Stand a little apart from me. I don't think my father should see that I'm as affected by this as I am."

Harry at once dropped his arm and stepped away. Draco shivered, then convinced himself he couldn't feel cold, since Harry hadn't been touching his whole body, just his upper body. Then he took a deep breath, and nerved himself, and knocked on the door.

"Enter," said Lucius's cold voice, and so they entered.

SSSSSSSSS

Lucius had learned the depth of his wrongness about many things: how much he hated, how much he loved, and how much he had loved his wife. But he had one more doubt left to unlearn, and he never knew it until he saw his son and his son-in-law enter the room the Headmistress had turned over to him and stand before him.

Draco walked unsteadily, but he was still walking. His cheeks had two spots of color on them that told Lucius how hard this was for him, still. His eyes had the unmistakable marks of weeping. Of course, Lucius could hardly hold him in contempt for that, when he was the one who had told his son to weep.

Harry's magic was everywhere around him, like a wheeling flock of cold birds. His gaze met Lucius's and locked, taking in, Lucius guessed, every possible way that he could be a threat to Draco. And the answering threat in those green eyes was very real. Make a move that could be interpreted as hurting his son, say the wrong thing, and Harry would tear him apart with no remorse.

And Lucius blinked a little, as one last piece of the puzzle fell into place.

He had thought his son too submissive at one point, and despised him for it. He had thought he should have a dynamic with Harry—if he _must_ choose a halfblood as a partner—more like the dynamic Lucius had with Narcissa, committed to hurting each other if necessary in order to prove a point. Harry carried too much of the strength in that partnership.

And now he saw that it did not matter who had the greater strength, if the other person had the power of command. Draco did. He could ask anything of Harry, and it would be done. That might not be true _all_ the time, but it was true now, and whenever else Draco truly needed it to be. Harry was not a dominating Lord taking the lead because of his magical power, but a guardian close and loyal to his lover, ready to defend or destroy or tear apart because someone else _asked_ him to.

_They are no more submissive to each other, _Lucius realized at that moment, _than Lady Stormborn and her Venture were. _Lady Stormborn had been a Light Lady who could not use her magic for killing. Venture, her lover and strong right hand, had done it for her instead, and she had been so effective that it was said more people feared her than Lady Stormborn, though the Lady was the stronger.

_Such strength runs behind and before the Malfoy family, and will serve to shelter my son when I am gone._

"Father?" Draco's voice was anxious, and Lucius realized he had been silent too long. Draco leaned forward, staring at him. Harry bristled intangibly, magic sliding out like hedgehog quills. "Is there something wrong? Did you not intend to invoke the full funeral rites for Mother after all?"

Harry's magic grew worse, and colder. Lucius heard the distinctive howl of a winter storm.

"No," he said quietly. "She deserves them, son, and she shall have them. I was—lost in thought. Now, come, sit with me, and make sure we have the list of guests we shall need to invite correct."

Draco came and sat with him. After a moment, he glanced up and asked Harry to come stand at his right shoulder. Harry did, leaning his left arm on Draco's shoulder at his next direction. His right arm was still shrouded in blankets, and Lucius could not see what it looked like. From the gaze that Harry trained on him, vigilant as a hawk's, he hardly cared, next to what he thought Lucius might do to Draco.

_I need not worry for my son when I am gone. He will be sheltered, protected, and loved as every Malfoy deserves to be. And that he could win such love for himself speaks of hidden depths in him I have never known._

"Father?"

Lucius shook his head, and told himself to stop drifting off into dreams of a future that might never be, if not all of them survived this war. He knew Harry still had reason to hate him, and in this mood, he might well strike first and think later if Draco was unduly distressed. He reached out, grasped the list of people who would attend the funeral, and slid it in front of Draco. "Here is the initial list of guests. Can you think of anyone who is missing?"

He soaked up Harry's power through his other senses, feeling the press of pain around his skull like a crown, since he didn't quite dare to look at the silent Lord-level wizard again.

_Get past this war, and the Malfoy family has a fine future waiting for it. We shall indeed rise again._

SSSSSSSSSS

Narcissa's funeral began on a day like the sea, when the sky was so thick with clouds that it seemed impossible light could find its way through, and yet it did. Harry watched the light dripping through the holes in the clouds, staining their undersides the way that sunlight would stain the surface of the rolling water, and felt a slow, deep sense of satisfaction. This was the way that it should be, neither entirely Light nor entirely Dark, the way that Narcissa had been. Oh, she had been a Dark witch, but she had died out of love and selflessness and honor and all those other conceptions that so many Light wizards believed Dark wizards could not understand.

He lowered his chin to Draco's shoulder and squeezed his arms firmly around him. He let out a little gasp when the material of Draco's robes shifted past his right arm, and tried to conceal his wince. Every movement against the black skin hurt as if someone were roasting him with dragonfire. But he was determined not to show that. This was a day for Draco's grief, as the past few days had been, and intruding on it seemed little short of obscene to Harry.

Draco faced him with a small frown, though, obviously having noted the gasp. "Are you all right?"

Harry fixed his eyes on Draco's face. His gray eyes were unclouded, as they had been since he heard about this funeral, wearing an expression of grim pride. His blond hair had been combed within an inch of its life, until one more tug of the comb would have brought strands out; it didn't shift as the wind swirled past them. His robes were dark, but trimmed with both blue-gray, the color of the old Malfoy family crest, and silver, one of the colors of the Blacks. Harry thought he looked magnificent, and let his admiration shine through his eyes. Draco flushed a bit and looked away.

"Perfectly all right," Harry whispered. "I'm here with you. Where else would I wish to be?"

Draco's hand found and squeezed his, hard. Harry was glad that it was the left one. The right one was still a crabbed claw after the hard clutch he'd maintained on the Peverell ring. But he got by. At least he had his magic. Most other people damaged after a battle like the one that had destroyed the Horcrux and the shard of Tom Riddle weren't as lucky.

"Thanks, Harry," Draco said softly, and then lifted his head as the distant sound of a bell rang out across the field. "That's it," he whispered. "That's where we're supposed to go. Follow." He took a step forward.

Harry followed closely, at his left shoulder. The space at Draco's right shoulder had to be left open for any Malfoy ghosts who wanted to walk with him. It felt unnatural to be on the other side—Harry didn't think he could shield Draco as well against attacks from here—but it was a requirement of the rites, and Draco had wanted these rites with all his heart. Harry could certainly put his own discomfort aside. Anything that Draco needed from him, he would have.

They were on the ground in front of Malfoy Manor, which shimmered now with fully restored blood wards, since no one was about to use it as a safehouse again. The ground looked flat and as gray as the sky, though crossed, like it, with lines of glimmering sunlight. Harry remembered the first time he had ever seen the Manor from this angle, the Christmas holiday that he had come from Hogwarts with Draco, and remembered the way that Narcissa had promised him safe sanctuary in the house. She had kept that promise, though Lucius had not.

Harry shook the thoughts from his head. He did not want to remember bad things about the past. He wanted to remember the woman they had come to honor, and the husband who had loved her enough to organize this for her.

He and Draco went in silent procession along the front of the house. When they reached the far corner, Snape joined them. He held a narcissus in his hand, and wore fine robes that Harry hadn't known he owned; he thought that they might have been a gift from Lucius. For whatever reason, along with Narcissa's blood relatives and the man—Harry—who had been adopted into the family, there could be one invited guest at this funeral, and Lucius had invited Snape. Harry thought it might have been because he had been there to see her die.

Draco bowed deeply on sighting Snape, and took out a narcissus of his own from his sleeve. "Well met, fellow traveler on the roads of death," he said. "Who have you come to honor?"

"A fallen woman," said Snape, his pure, polished tones perfectly fitted, Harry thought, to the role he was meant to play, as companion to Narcissa's soul. "A fallen Malfoy wife and mother. When I heard she was dead, I did not wait, but hastened here to see her go."

Draco considered Snape in silence for some moments. Harry almost wondered if he should prompt him to remember the ritual words, then scolded himself. Of course Draco would remember them, but it was a disgrace to Narcissa's spirit if he didn't take the proper amount of time to judge the guest.

"Be here, and be welcome," said Draco abruptly. "It is Narcissa Malfoy who has died, and it is fitting that you should come when you heard the news. A mighty wizard such as yourself is always welcome." Harry breathed a bit more easily. Magical power was about the most neutral thing Draco could have judged Snape on, and so he was glad that Draco had chosen it. "What gift do you bring her?"

Snape reached up and removed a slender silver chain from around his neck, offering a vial of crystalline glass. This, Harry was less certain Lucius had given him; Snape might well have such a thing in his stores for capturing his more expensive Potions ingredients. "A petal from an amaranth," he answered.

Harry started, and looked more closely at the petal in the glass. Yes; it was purple-red, and shone with a faint, flickering flame, rather like the one that might surround a phoenix feather. Where Snape had found a sprig of the immortal flower, and why he had chosen to give up this petal to Narcissa, Harry had no idea. Amaranths were more rarely seen even than phoenixes were.

"Be once, and twice, and thrice welcome, then," said Draco, and reached back to put his hand on Harry's shoulder. Harry felt himself come alive under the touch. "Do you acknowledge your connection to the man who would have been Narcissa Malfoy's son-in-law, had she lived?"

Snape looked directly into Harry's eyes, and sent a bolt of reassuring Legilimency. Harry wished he could scowl. He didn't need reassurance, Draco did.

"I recognize it," Snape said. "It is part of the reason I am here." He looked back at Draco. "But the greater part is that I wished to honor her, brave and gracious woman that she was, a Malfoy wife and mother."

Draco caught his breath, and then nodded. Harry thought he was probably more affected by the ritual words than he'd admit. "You are welcome, Professor Snape," he said. "A mighty wizard, and a gift that speaks of immortality. Be four times welcome." He turned and began to walk the path they'd been instructed to tread again, along the house and towards the Malfoy vaults at the back. Harry followed, still at his left shoulder, and Snape trailed behind them both.

Harry wished the funeral rites hadn't called for Snape to walk there. He had eyes that were far too keen for the role of follower, for one thing, and for another, Harry could feel those eyes boring into his shoulder blades. Snape had an obsession with his health over the past few days.

They met up with Regulus when they were halfway through the immense, circular track that Lucius had described to them, and which they had to walk, to tell all the Malfoy estates that someone beloved was gone from them. He wore dark robes with the Black crest prominent above his heart, and he carried a black rose. Its petals were edged with silver.

"Who comes?" Draco asked, his voice appropriately grave and reverential. "For you are not of Malfoy blood, sir, by your countenance, and it is a Malfoy woman we have come to honor."

Regulus nodded. Harry had not thought he could look so solemn. Of course, the loss of Narcissa had struck him harder than just the loss of a cousin, Harry thought. They'd spent much time together in the last little while, as Regulus identified Black artifacts that might be of use in the war, and Narcissa helped him remember which were deadly outside of the family and which ones were not. They'd had the time to talk, to exchange memories, and to know each other as adults, outside the childhood Harry thought was half-twisted, given what he knew of the way Sirius and Bellatrix had grown up. Harry decided he would need to attend to Regulus's grief as soon as Draco's need for him lessened. He didn't know if Regulus was talking to anyone about it, even Snape, and everyone should have someone to talk to.

"She was Malfoy, but born of the Black line, and I am the heir of Black." Regulus held up the black rose. "I bring a flower in the colors of her birth, one that is bred of magic and not from nature. She was a creature of magic, as well, and too perfect to simply grow without careful tending and shaping and sculpting, all of which she did herself."

Draco bowed. "Be welcome, heir of Black, for the legacy you bear that resulted in Narcissa Malfoy," he said. "Be twice welcome, for your understanding of her. Be thrice welcome, for your sobriety and quietness in joining us on the roads of death. Will you walk with us?"

"I will."

Regulus turned to accompany them, walking parallel to Draco but a short distance away. The rose in his hands remained steady. Harry studied his face surreptitiously, though, and surprised a trace of tears there.

_Yes, I will have to talk to him._

Almost at the end, near the Malfoy crypts, they met Andromeda and Tonks. Tonks's hair was dark, and her eyes gray. Harry thought she might be wearing her true face, or perhaps she had simply moved her features closer to Black for the role that she was supposed to play in the full funeral rites. Andromeda looked much as she had the last time Harry had seen her, when they sent letters to the other Ministries, but more thoughtful. Tonks held a narcissus, Andromeda a flower that Harry didn't recognize.

"These women are also of the Black line," said Regulus, introducing them, as was proper for the representative of an alien bloodline, Harry knew. "They are under my protection. One was a woman who shared her childhood with Narcissa Malfoy, and the other is of her body."

"What gifts do you bring for the deceased?" Draco asked. His voice was breaking now. Harry let his left arm brush undetectably against his side in support, since they couldn't touch openly at this point in the ceremony.

"I bring a narcissus," Tonks answered, her voice hesitant and hoarse, "for her name. I did not know her well enough to do otherwise, and a gift that presumes is a gift with its purpose undone."

Draco nodded, and turned to look at Andromeda.

"I was her sister," said Andromeda, and held out her hand. Harry took the chance to study the flower more closely. It looked like a narcissus, actually, but a dark blue-purple, and its center was a deep blue, the color of Narcissa's eyes. "This is a blossom of the bush that flowered the day she was born, and the day she first learned to walk, and the day she married, and the day she died. No time else. It does not have a name. That knowledge died with my mother."

"Be welcome," Draco whispered, "you who come in humility. Be twice welcome, you who shared your childhood and can tell us things about Narcissa Malfoy we never knew." Harry could see him fighting the urge to reach out and touch the strange flower. "Be thrice welcome, you who saw her born and are here to see her lowered." He nodded. "Walk with us on the roads of death."

Andromeda and Tonks took their places at Regulus's shoulders, and on they went. Harry was still trying to ignore Snape's stare.

At least that became easier when they reached the grave itself. It was not, strictly speaking, a grave, but an open entrance into the white Malfoy mausoleum, which Harry had never seen before; Draco told him it only became visible when one of the family had died. The air hummed with ancient magic. The coffin stood ready in front of the open tomb, with Lucius beside it and the top lifted to show Narcissa's face. _Too peaceful, _Harry thought, as he gazed at her. _There is no thinking that she died as anything but a willing sacrifice._

He banished the thoughts that tried to follow that. It had been a willing death, indeed, and he could not allow his own grief to intrude, not now. There were better things to do, like moving forward to Draco's side as they all halted, just in case he should fall.

"Who comes?" Lucius asked, drawing his wand, as if he would defend his wife's body. That was more formality than anything, Harry knew, left over from the days when rival pureblood families would sometimes attack during funerals, given that all their enemies were gathered in one place. "Who comes to disturb the peace of the newly dead, Narcissa Malfoy, a Malfoy wife and mother?"

"We do not disturb it, Father, defender," said Draco, head bowed. "These are the man who would have been her son-in-law—" for a moment, his hand brushed hard against Harry's ribs, returning the gesture from before "—a guest met on the road who bears a token of immortality, the heir of the line into which she was born, a sister who shared her childhood, and the child of that sister's body. They bring flowers, as is proper, those symbols of beauty that live and die, and shall live and die until the world is changed and flowers bloom no more. Some honor her name, some her character, some her life. They are not intruders, but proper and respectful mourners of the greatness that is gone." He paused, then added softly, "We shall not see her like again."

Lucius nodded sharply, then said, "Lay your flowers down."

They stepped forward, in reverse order, so that the purple flower Andromeda held was laid first, under Narcissa's left hand, and the narcissus Harry held came last. He peered down at Narcissa for a moment, wondering about the best place to put it—he could not place it between her breasts; that was for Lucius alone—and at last lifted her hair and settled it under the long golden fall.

Lucius opened his mouth, and then snapped it shut and stared. Harry turned his head.

Another narcissus was whirling up the wind, as though hastened along by someone who was both invisible and late. It tucked itself into the coffin, near the place where the lid would close down and conceal Narcissa's face. The moment it fell limp, it lost all hint of magic.

Harry looked sideways at Draco and mouthed, _Was that supposed to happen?_

Eyes wide, Draco shook his head.

Lucius recovered quickly, though. "We all have our gifts," he said. "And even the world mourns her." Harry saw Draco stand a little straighter at that, and silently blessed whoever had sent the narcissus; it had eased Draco's grief, a little. "But it is time for my gift, the gift of the one who married her and brought her into the Malfoy family, and sired her son upon her." His voice softened, and Harry had the feeling the next words were not in the rites. "The man who loved her, though too little and too late."

He leaned forward and laid a tempered blade between Narcissa's breasts. Harry did not think he had ever seen a knife so beautiful. Its steel rippled like a wave, and was silver with touches of white, as though someone had captured the glint of diamonds under the surface. The hilt was set with diamonds itself, in the shape of a narcissus.

"She was a tempered blade," said Lucius, "and our relationship was ever on a knife's edge. May rust never touch her."

He stepped back and raised his wand. The coffin's lid shut slowly.

Draco gave a choked sob at his side. Harry stepped forward and wrapped his left arm around him, turning his head to nuzzle at his neck. He could do that, now that the gravest part of the ceremony was past. Draco turned and clutched at him, eyes tightly shut. Harry couldn't blame him. One of the most wonderful women he had ever known was going where no one would ever look upon her face again.

_Farewell, Narcissa, _he thought, tendering his own goodbye when it would not be improper for him to do so. She had cared a great deal about propriety, he knew. _The first true mother I ever knew. _

The coffin shut, and Lucius levitated it into the tomb. The door shut with a shimmer, and a moment later, the whole mausoleum vanished, sealing itself beyond sight until it should be needed again.

Lucius tilted back his head, and screamed.

Harry shivered. He had known this was coming, of course—the Wailing was part of many Dark pureblood funerals, not only the Malfoys'—but it was still a shock to hear it. Lucius gave vent to the tearing pain in his heart, and, appropriately, the sound tore the air, and made the birds wheeling overhead flee.

Lucius cried again. This time, Draco joined his voice to his father's, and Harry heard the tears he had, even now, kept back. He shook his head and tightened his hold. How did one rise, knowing a loving parent had been there every day, and get used to living without them?

A third time Lucius wailed, and a second time Draco wailed, and now it was permitted for the rest of them to become the chorus. Harry took a deep breath, then loosed it in a ringing scream.

He listened as the sounds rode the wind, and hoped that anyone who might think of harming Draco would hear his cry for the warning it was, and stay away.

And he hoped, too, if she still had ears to hear, that Narcissa would listen, and know that the son she had died for was well taken care of.

Harry closed his eyes, and drew Draco close, and set himself to endure.


	46. Changeable

Thanks for the reviews on the last chapters!

**Chapter Thirty-Five: Changeable**

Harry leaned forward, staring steadily at Regulus. "I know that you miss her," he said, which made Regulus freeze over the tea he was preparing. He had his back turned to Harry, the position he'd been in since almost the moment Harry came through the Floo connection to Silver-Mirror. "You don't have to pretend around me, Regulus. You became close in these last few months. She was your cousin, and your memories of that are much nearer the surface than hers because you didn't physically age. You can tell me that you grieve for Narcissa."

Regulus turned around with two cups of tea in his hands and an expression of unnatural calm on his face. "Of course I do."

Harry Summoned one of the cups of tea, gently enough not to spill a drop, and narrowed his eyes as he set it down on the arm of his chair. "Then why are you acting as if you don't? I don't think anyone expects this kind of stoic act outside the funeral."

"I did not wish to burden you further," said Regulus quietly, and sipped at his tea. Harry could see the signs of a coming rupture in the sides of his face, but he was willing to wait for it to arrive. "You had enough to do with destroying the Horcrux and taking care of Draco."

"I still noticed," Harry whispered. "I would have come to you the moment the funeral was over, if Draco hadn't needed a little more reassurance. But this time, even though he wanted me to stay there a bit longer, I refused. I can tell when he truly _needs_ me there, the way he did the past few days, and when he only wants to stay in bed to skive off."

Regulus almost smiled. Then he blinked and said, "Doesn't this mean that you're missing classes, Harry?"

"You're more important."

Regulus took a deep breath and licked his lips. Harry waited. Regulus had been more often cast in the role of comforter than comforted these past few months, unless one counted his nightmares of Death's country. And Harry was not only younger than he was, but someone Regulus thought of as his child, his heir, in need of protection. Of course it would feel odd to confess this.

"She was the one who taught me what it was like," Regulus began softly, "to have a child in danger, in the midst of battle, and still fight on. She didn't let her concern for Draco dominate her entire life, though of course it was always there. She concentrated on the Black artifacts, on her missing husband, on the news of the battles and your international connections flowing in. I do get obsessed with one concern if I don't watch myself. She taught me how to act on more than one level."

"Good," Harry whispered.

Regulus shot him a small smile. "It didn't help that I'd known her as a little hellion, you know—by the standards of the Black family—the most outgoing of her sisters, and now she was this poised and perfect woman." He shook his head in wonder. "Marriage to Lucius Malfoy was good for her, and I wouldn't have said that it would be when they got married."

"Why not?" Harry asked. From what Narcissa herself had told him about their courtship, she had always known that she wanted to marry Lucius, and everything after their seventh year at Hogwarts had been a mere settling of formalities.

"Lucius Malfoy was colder at a deeper level than she was," Regulus answered. "They complemented each other, of course, but there's a difference between that and one partner preying on the other. I could see perfectly how she would melt a bit of Lucius's coldness, how he would get what he needed from her. I couldn't see how she would get what she needed from him. She already had strength of her own, and when she needed human warmth, he'd have none."

"I think it was more than that." Harry poked cautiously at his thoughts of Narcissa. They felt like a loose tooth, even now. "She got something else that she needed from him, something more important than warmth."

"And that probably proves only that I don't understand them, and never did." Regulus gave a wry smile and shrugged. "And the woman I grieve for is more the woman of these last few months _and_ the cousin I knew as a child, not all the women she was in between."

"She'd understand that," said Harry. "You weren't there, and it wasn't your fault. Everyone believed you were dead." The spell Dumbledore had used to make it seem as if Sirius were the heir of Black and to make everyone forget Regulus's existence still angered him if he thought of it. "Why do you think you should grieve for everything she was?'

Regulus bit his lip, making him look very young. "Because she was such a wonderful woman," he said finally. "It seems a blasphemy not to mourn her as fully as she should be mourned."

"She'll receive that," said Harry. "From Lucius. From Draco. But mourn what she was to you, Regulus. I'm fairly sure she never was that to anyone else. Dark pureblood witches don't tend to take parenting advice from each other."

"I've noticed," said Regulus dryly. "Narcissa's mother never could tell my mother how to raise me and Sirius, though she tried—and Sirius, at least, would have been better off if our mother had listened." He hesitated again. Then he said, "Would you be adverse to spending next weekend in my company, Harry? There are a few secrets of the Black estate that you don't know even now, and that you should."

Harry smiled. "I'd like to." That way, he would get to see more of Regulus, and make sure he was dealing well with his grief. Though it seemed quiet and peaceful right now, with no noisy storms of tears, he might be persuaded to shed them as more time passed since the funeral.

They talked of other things, then, with Regulus determinedly changing the subject, and Harry letting him. He'd opened a road. Regulus wouldn't enclose himself behind walls of bone or ice and pretend nothing was wrong. Harry knew how disastrous that would be.

They talked about the other Horcruxes, methods of destroying them once they had them and once, in a fit of Regulus's drollery, on ways to lure Evan Rosier close. Harry only smiled through that part. The Hufflepuff cup would be the last Horcrux he tried to obtain, he thought. Though Rosier's magic might be less formidable than the defenses that had guarded the ring, he moved around, and there was next to no way of being sure where he would go next.

At last, Regulus sighed and said, "As much as I've enjoyed your company, Harry, Severus will be wondering where you went."

"I suppose so," Harry said. He'd missed Potions. He stood, making sure to keep his gaze on Regulus, and keep it calm and assessing. "I will see you next weekend? No sudden excuses otherwise?"

"Not unless I wake up with a sore throat and a cold you shouldn't be within a hundred miles of."

Harry smiled, and then ducked back through the Floo connection into the hospital wing. Draco was waiting for him, and Harry lifted his head anxiously, his instincts from the past few days stirring. Had something happened while he was gone? Did Draco's waiting for him mean he should have returned earlier?

"Harry!" Draco reached out and, probably only because it was closer to him than the other, he caught Harry's right arm.

The pain was instant, like a hot drill, and Harry fainted.

SSSSSSSSSSS

Draco stared, and then knelt swiftly beside Harry. He'd only meant to tell him how spectacular a bad mood Snape had been in that morning when he realized Harry wasn't in Potions, even though Draco was. He hadn't thought his mere touch could make him fall.

Then he caught a glimpse of blackness above the bandages that shrouded Harry's right arm, and froze.

_I didn't—he never showed me his arm in the past few days. I just assumed the damage had been cured. _Draco squinted, finding the blackness hard to look at even now. _And he was using Notice-Me-Not charms to make sure that I didn't look too closely. Damn him!_

He quickly undid the bandages, and hissed. Harry's arm was shedding black, crispy flakes like toast cooked too well. The flesh underneath felt spongy to Draco's touch, and his hand was a black-red crab's claw.

And then Harry was awake and gasping from the pain of being touched, and Draco put accusations and blame aside. He would yell later. Right now, what mattered was healing Harry's arm, as much as that could be done.

"Come on," he said quietly, and pulled on Harry's left arm until he sat up. "Do you want to go to Madam Pomfrey for this, or to Professor Snape?"

Harry froze for a moment, then seemed to realize he wouldn't get out of it. He shook his head slightly. "I've talked to Madam Pomfrey before," he said. "She'd confine me to bed, but not do anything else. It would be too much fussing. Take me to Snape." He hissed under his breath as he stood. Draco glanced over to make sure that his robe wasn't brushing against Harry's right arm, and frowned when he saw that it wasn't.

"Does your arm hurt all the time?" he asked.

"When air brushes against it." Harry shrugged, and stared at the bandages Draco had dropped to the ground. They reassembled themselves around his right arm. This time, Draco could see that there was a narrow layer of air in between the cloth and the skin. "But that hurts less than something else touching it."

Draco narrowed his eyes. Certainty had just settled like a stone in his stomach. "The _only_ reason you're wearing those bandages is to keep people from staring," he said. "They don't actually do anything to help you."

Harry returned the frown. "Of course they do. I told you, air is less painful, and this means that, most of the time, nothing but air touches it."

"You didn't tell me about this. Why?" Draco longed to touch Harry's shoulder in reassurance, but he didn't fancy being the one to send Harry crumbling to the floor. He steered him out of the hospital wing and towards the dungeons instead. Harry followed with only a small amount of stiffness in his spine. Draco's puzzlement increased. He could tell that Harry didn't want to see Snape, but not why.

"Are you mad, Draco?"

"Mad on account of what? What did I do?" This was one of the few times in their relationship Draco had ever found Harry utterly bewildering.

"I didn't tell you about it," said Harry, as if speaking to a very small child, "because I _knew_ that you were suffering a wound I can't even imagine. You love so few people, Draco, and one of them is gone." He turned to the side, and Draco suddenly found himself the one who was the recipient of the concerned gaze. Harry shrugged his left arm free, and ran his hand gently up and down Draco's cheek. "Are you ready to do this? I can take myself to Snape, you know."

There were two moments during which Draco just blinked, in the middle of a pure white haze of confusion.

Then the confusion became rage, and he would have punched Harry if not for that fragile right arm. As it was, he stepped behind Harry and propelled him down the corridor. Harry cocked his head to stare back at him.

"You idiot," Draco hissed. "Did you really think I'd be invalid from my mother's death for months? Did you think I had to stop caring about you because _I_ was hurting? Didn't it occur to you that this might give me something to do _besides_ brood?"

"I wouldn't have _minded_ if you were an invalid for months, because of what you've suffered," Harry corrected. He was shaking his head now, and trying to halt, but Draco kept his feet moving, so that he couldn't do something stupid like stop and argue. "If you recovered before then, that would be wonderful. But you should have what you need, Draco, and—"

"And part of that involves you whole and healthy." Harry tried to catch a corner in the hallway to stop them. Draco expertly steered him past that and down the stairs beyond. "I'm not the only one who suffered, Harry. I'm not the only one who lost. Am I going to care about some random person I never knew who dies in a werewolf attack or a Death Eater raid? No. But I _do_ care about you, and just because my mother is dead doesn't mean that I've lost all ability to love or look beyond myself. That you would think I had is insulting."

Abruptly, Harry bowed his head and stepped to the side in a neat dancer's movement, leaving Draco to push empty air. His eyes were narrow, but it was the quietude of his face that made Draco break off, not his gaze. This was Harry in the midst of a dangerous rage.

"_That's_ why I haven't been talking to you or Snape," Harry snapped. "_That's_ why I thought that you shouldn't know what I was thinking about, even before your grief made it dangerous for you—"

"Dangerous my pureblood arse—"

"It _is!_" Harry shouted. "It was a devastating loss, and the attention I gave you was no less than what you needed or deserved, Draco." He was breathing hard, and Draco thought he saw the sheen of tears on his cheeks, but in a moment they were gone, dried by his magic—or perhaps not having existed at all. "But that's not what we were arguing about. We were arguing about what I think about you. No, I never thought you were selfish. No, I never thought that you'd lost all ability to love because one person whom you did love is dead. _Stop putting words in my mouth that were never there._ I haven't told you or Snape anything I've been thinking or feeling because I don't trust you not to scold me for it!"

The words made the corridor ring. Draco blinked, and then stepped forward with his hand outstretched. Harry was bristling, intangible icicles extending from him. Draco knew he wouldn't be hurt, though. He never was. Harry never hurt him magically.

"Harry," he breathed. "It's all right. I promise, both of us only want to help you. If you tell us not to scold, we won't."

Harry gave him a smile so bitter it stopped Draco in his tracks. "That's the problem, Draco," he answered. "I don't trust you not to do it. It'll start innocently, under the pretense of comfort, such as telling me that I really shouldn't regret my parents' deaths, they were quicker than they deserved and at least it wasn't someone closer to me. And that will lead to an argument. And the one thing I _cannot_ afford right now is an argument with you, or Snape, or Connor, about my emotions. I think I could bear everything else. But not that. It's too exhausting."

_Well, yes, that does hurt, that he doesn't trust us._ Draco sidled another step closer. Harry took a step back. Already, Draco could see, he was trying to smooth it over, trying to pretend this hadn't happened, and swallow back the anger, grief, and other emotions he was experiencing.

"I'm sorry," Harry said at last, opening his eyes. They were unnaturally bright, Draco thought in alarm. "That shouldn't have happened, not when you're grieving and not when we have more important things to worry about. I'll still see Snape about my arm. I agree, it's time. The pain isn't getting better, though the blackness hasn't advanced."

"Harry," Draco whispered, unable to believe, now, that he hadn't thought of this earlier. "You loved my mother, too."

"We aren't talking about that," Harry snapped, and then turned and walked towards the dungeons again.

"You did love her," Draco said, following him. "I know it. Please. I can't imagine that you're feeling anything about her that I would _want_ to scold you for. Or Snape either, for that matter. Please talk to me about it?"

"I can imagine it," Harry muttered darkly, and then fixed him with a calm stare. "Look—Draco, I appreciate everything you've done for me. I love you more than I can express in words, or with magic, or with actions. Everything together would still fall short. Whatever you need of me, you can have. But this you don't need, and you can't have. Leave it alone."

Draco fell silent, biting his lip. No matter what he thought or felt, he was enough of an expert in Harry-speak to know that he wouldn't get what he wanted by pushing, not right now.

_Maybe Snape can make an impression on him. I hope so._

SSSSSSSSS

Harry spent the walk to the dungeons reinforcing his barriers. Snape would no doubt react to the sight of his arm much as Draco had, and he wanted to be prepared for that. This breakdown should never have happened. It was much easier if Draco and Snape—and Connor, for that matter, though he'd kept a respectful distance since Narcissa's death—never suspected he was hiding anything. Then he wouldn't get the admonishments for not talking to someone.

An enormous weariness rose up in Harry at the thought of those admonishments. What had happened the moment Draco found out about his arm? Yes. Of course. Scolding. It seemed that nothing Harry did was right. Keep it secret and keep it silent, and that was wrong. Share it, and that was wrong.

He knew what they would say about his parents, about the darkness he carried inside him, about his feelings for Narcissa's death.

_They deserved it, Harry. How can you grieve for them?_

_You're not really that dark, Harry. You would never do anything like Voldemort did._

_She died as a sacrifice, Harry. She wanted to die._

All of them were well-meant. All of them were designed to scold him out of how he felt and into a more acceptable frame of mind. All of them were wrong.

_If I reacted that badly to Draco's reaction to my arm, Merlin knows what would happen if I said anything to Snape about the fact that part of me likes hurting people, likes taking revenge on my enemies. He wouldn't just listen. He's incapable of that. He'd try to convince me that part of me doesn't exist, when I know it does, or that it's all right, when I know it isn't because it violates my own principles._

There was no perfect solution to the problem. What there was, was the partial solution Harry had constructed. They didn't ask, because they had no idea what was missing, and he held the feelings to himself and brooded in private and worked through them on his own.

Besides, it wasn't as though they didn't have enough matters of their own to concern them in the real world. Draco had just lost his mother. Snape had classes to teach, and his friendship with Regulus was growing again. Connor was currently involved in helping Parvati fight several obscure legal maneuvers her parents were trying to get her back. All of them had their own lives. None of them needed access to his inner emotions to be complete.

_I can just keep those emotions silent. They can be mine. It's a thousand times better than being scolded._

SSSSSSSSS

Snape simply stared at the blackened arm for a long moment. Then he reached out and ran one finger down it. Harry closed his eyes and shook at the pain.

"Idiot boy," Snape whispered.

Too late, he saw Draco's furiously shaking head, and caught a glimpse of dark satisfaction in Harry's eyes when he opened them. It wasn't that he was pleased with the state of his arm, Snape thought, staring at him and using Legilimency to capture what he could of Harry's surface thoughts. It was more the cynical pleasure Snape himself sometimes felt when people did things his belief in their stupidity had predicted they would do.

Snape did not enjoy being evaluated as stupid.

Before he could object, Harry said, "Yes, I'm an idiot, I should have come to you long since, et cetera. All the things that are a regular part of the way you relate to me. I could recite them all back to you by heart. Can we get on with healing my arm now?" His eyes were half-lidded, and a dangerous fire shimmered behind them that Snape didn't recognize.

On the other hand, Harry's words did let him understand what was wrong.

_What I have done in the past is no longer effective. Perhaps it never was. I cannot scold Harry into taking care of himself, and threats only work when Harry feels guilt. And Merlin knows I do not wish to encourage that guilt. He needs something else from me now._

_What is it?_

For now, since he didn't know, Snape would settle for neutrality and see where that brought them. "The poison's advance has stopped," he said. "What needs to happen is the purging of the corrupt flesh, so that new, healthy muscle and skin can grow underneath it." Harry nodded. Snape looked him in the eye. "There is a potion that will make the arm slough such skin. It was designed for use with burn victims, to try and heal their wounds. Of course, it was not completely effective; it draws on the magic of the victim, and tends to change very weak wizards and witches into Squibs."

Harry snorted. "That will not be a problem, at least."

Draco opened his mouth as if to say something, then snapped it shut. Snape approved. Since Draco seemed to be caught in the same dilemma he was—what to say to Harry that he wouldn't take the wrong way—it was probably best if he remained silent for now. "It is also exquisitely painful."

Harry looked him directly in the face. "That will not be a problem, either."

"It may be," said Snape quietly. "I know you can bear pain, Harry, but not on this level. You will be confined to bed for a few days, and it is necessary to keep you unconscious as much as possible during this time, so that the pain does not overwhelm your reason."

Harry's nostrils flared, and his teeth clenched. Then he nodded, once. "If that's what must be done, that's what must be done," he said.

Snape hated the resignation in his tone, and the indifference that backed it, as if the only reason Harry was doing this was that he was made to. He still, at bottom, didn't care about himself as Snape wished he would.

For the first time, however, Snape was coming to accept that Harry could not be talked into that caring. He needed something else.

_What_?

"If you go to Madam Pomfrey, Harry, and tell her the situation, I will brew the potion and bring it up," Snape said calmly. "It does not take long to make. Tell her to give you Dreamless Sleep in the meanwhile, so that you are unconscious by the time I finish brewing."

Draco moved as if he would accompany Harry, but Harry shot him a cool glance, said, "I think I can find my own way to the hospital wing, thanks," and left.

Snape turned at once to Draco when the door had shut. That earlier and sudden silencing had left him sure that Draco knew more than he let on. "What is the matter with him?" he demanded.

"He said he couldn't take being chided." Draco's brow was furrowed as he stared at the door, and for the first time in a week, Snape saw something in his face other than grief for his mother. "He doesn't want to tell us anything about what he feels—and that includes pain, I suppose—for fear that we'll misunderstand it. He said he couldn't take the arguments." He looked up at Snape. "And I think he's right. You saw the way he was just now, unable to hide his emotions. Until I actually confronted him, and scolded him, he was pulling that same 'I'm-perfectly-fine-and-focused-on-others' act that he kept up without a break this past week. He doesn't want to think about what he's feeling, and he doesn't want to talk about it."

"And do you know what the sources of those emotions are?" Snape asked softly, though he could think of at least two: the deaths of Lily and James, and the death of Narcissa.

"There are at least three, I think," said Draco. "My mother, his parents, and the darkness in him I saw the night Medusa and Eos Rosier-Henlin died. Actually, that's probably a fourth source of trauma right there, since he saw it happen, and he won't talk about it." Draco took a deep breath and leaned his forehead on his hand. Snape could hear him fighting to get the words out—less, he thought, because Draco had true difficulty in saying them than because he was attempting to phrase the concept for the first time. "He thinks we won't spend time comforting him. Instead, what we really care about—according to him—is persuading him to see things our way. He believes that's more important to us than what he's really thinking and feeling. And, sir?" He looked up, biting his lip. "I think he's right. At least sometimes."

Snape opened his mouth to refute that. He had indeed comforted Harry without words and without demands, such as after he lost Fawkes—

And he had tried to persuade him that what he felt was wrong, as well, such as when he brought the Potters to trial.

He shut his mouth, then exhaled slowly.

"I suspect, Mr. Malfoy," he murmured, "that we have not been thinking of him as a fully healed person even now. I, at least, have been content to trace most of his reactions back to abuse, or to his sacrificial instincts, or to his damnable need to spare other people the _burden_ of his feelings. I thought he had been hiding behind you for the past week, using your grief as an excuse not to deal with his own. But perhaps we should trust what he says, instead of looking for hidden motives behind it. He simply does not want to be treated like a child who needs to learn a lesson. I think we can accommodate that."

Draco's face shone like the moon. "I can do that, sir." Then he paused, and his expression dimmed a bit. "But how are we going to persuade him to trust us again? That's really the root of it, really, that he doesn't trust us."

"We are going to have to take risks." Snape could feel his mouth curling at the thought, but if there was any person he should be willing to take risks for, it was Harry. "Approach him and offer to listen while knowing he may snap at us. There's no guaranteed way of dealing with Harry. We may have become too used to assuming that there is, that we understand his every reaction because we know his past. But that is no longer true. I do not think it ever completely was."

Draco nodded, his expression on fire with determination. "I'll go to the hospital wing and sit with him, sir." He paused when he reached the door. "Will it really take you only a few minutes to brew the Purging Potion?"

"It will," said Snape. "It is a simple draught, indeed; only its inconveniences keep it from being used more often."

Draco nodded again, and left. Snape turned to gather the ingredients he would need, while trying to recover from the feeling that a good deal of ground had slipped from under his feet.

_So one of the tasks I had assumed would be implacable—being Harry's guardian—ends up being more changeable than I imagined._

_Well._

_I am not one to give up._

SSSSSSSSSSS

To Draco's relief, he reached the hospital wing before the Dreamless Sleep Potion lulled Harry into slumber. Harry was curled up in a bed, eyes drooping, right arm splayed awkwardly over his chest.

He saw Draco coming, and drew himself up. Draco winced at the sight of several emotions vanishing behind that emotionless mask.

"How are you feeling, Draco?" Harry asked quietly.

"Better," said Draco, sitting in the chair beside him and taking Harry's left hand. "What about you?"

Harry just watched him. "Fine," he said, after a moment, and now that he was listening, Draco could hear the spark of challenge in it, the assumption that Draco would insist he was not fine and start an argument.

Keeping his eyes on Harry's, Draco reached up and smoothed a lock of hair aside from his forehead, baring the lightning bolt scar. Then he leaned up and kissed it. Harry's face was an expression of utter confusion when he retreated.

Draco didn't make a mention of it. He just squeezed Harry's hand and watched as his eyelids fluttered slowly, then drooped shut. His body relaxed with a sigh. Draco looked at his corrupted right arm and shook his head.

_I may not love many people, but I can protect those I do love. And if what Harry needs from me right now is unconditional support, that's what he'll have. _

_He won't need it forever. _Draco smiled briefly. _That's good, because I can't give it forever. But surely we can alternate in giving each other what we need. It shouldn't be all my part, the way it so often seemed during those first few years when I was Harry's friend and he did everything he could to drive me away, and it shouldn't be all him, the way it was for the past week. And it's probably a good idea to stop counting debts and settling scores. What matters is that we love each other and we're going to be bound together, not who comforted whom on a particular day in April two years ago._

Draco felt an odd melting sensation in the center of his chest. A moment later, he was certain he had actually _felt_ himself passing through another of the numerous gates into adulthood.

_Such a long, long road. But I suppose I'll always be passing through them, as long as I live. Trying to insist on just one way of dealing with problems only gets you frozen emotionally. Or killed._

Draco sat calmly then, holding his lover's hand, because Harry needed it and because he wanted to and because he could.


	47. Chapterlette: An Altered Man

**Chapterlette: An Altered Man**

Lucius Malfoy knew there were many people who would pity him. He had lost the one person in the world he most unconditionally loved, and he was dependent on his son's sufferance for everything from daily bread to daily breath.

He did not show a sign of it as he strode down the middle of Knockturn Alley. That was always the first step, the one that fools who dismissed it as a game of masks and proper posture refused to understand. Look as though he did not care, and many people would believe he did not. That decreased confrontations which would have taxed his energy and perhaps let emotions come to the surface that his mask was not ready to bear.

They might say that Malfoys did not know how to mourn. But they had never said that they did not know how to survive.

He halted at the entrance of a shop with dust thick around the door. Inwardly, he smiled. _So Master Seth has not changed the tricks that he uses to discourage all but his special clients, _he thought, and swung the door open, the cane he carried along with him clicking as he strode across the floor.

Inside, the shop was mostly dark and quiet, but with a few carefully-placed torches and lamps that cast a panoply of light. Lucius knew the shadows they cast were actually more important. He tugged on his gloves and waited.

The door at the back of the shop opened, and a small, cramped man scuttled out. He was bow-legged, with a seamed face and cracked yellow teeth. He wanted to be sure that he was not accosted on the streets daily by people who knew about his mastery. That appearance meant they had to look beneath the surface to find his skill, and many wizards and witches who considered themselves people of taste couldn't do that.

He stopped when he saw Lucius, and his frog-green eyes widened. Then he gave a little nod. His head was like a frog's, too, sunk low on his shoulders, and with almost no neck where it disappeared into his torso. "Mr. Malfoy," he croaked. "Is there something Seth can do for you?"

"Stop pretending that you are a house elf," Lucius muttered, and then reached into his sleeve. Seth watched intently, which made Lucius smile. The man said he didn't have a wand. Of course, he did. No matter how disgusting he might be, the Ministry had never made that a reason to deny a wand to anyone.

_Now, if they were able to see beneath the glamour…_

He handed over the document which he'd created, an intricate image drawn with the help of a spell that would let him picture exactly what he imagined; he had little artistic skill to draw on himself. There had once been a tradition of teaching each Malfoy heir a small art, such as song or poetry or portraiture, but that had died with his father's generation.

Seth unrolled the scroll and studied it for long moments. Then he nodded and said, "I can build this, Mr. Malfoy, easily. But—" He paused for another long moment, and Lucius knew he was reading the request at the bottom of the page.

When he lifted his head, he looked troubled, but also regretful. "I am afraid that I am only a simple smith, Mr. Malfoy," he said. The frog-like sound had returned to his voice. "I do not have the intense magic to blend the final ingredient with the chains." He tried to return the scroll to Lucius.

Lucius didn't accept it. "Yes, you do."

Seth only blinked a few more times, eyes seeming to stand out from his face more than ever. "This would require a wizard of exceptional skill, Mr. Malfoy," he said. "And I've never claimed to be that. If I were, I should have more customers!" He laughed, a sound like a toad bursting.

Lucius did not join in. Instead, he concentrated on the powerful glamour-destroying spell he'd looked up in the Black library, and flicked his wand casually in Seth's direction.

The man let out a cry as his disguise splintered, shards of shadow and light flying in every direction. And suddenly he was revealed as being taller than he had appeared, with clear yellow eyes not that different in color from some of the Light pureblood families', and an aura of magic that surged through the small shop and nearly brought the ceiling down.

Of course, when they saw the rest of his body, most people would understand why he hid those features. His spine shimmered with sharp black spikes, which his hair grew into. Heavy eye-ridges covered his golden eyes, and the blue-black scales ran from his face back into a tail that he used to balance like a third leg. Leather wings extended from the middle of his back, flapping to make sure he didn't fall over from the shock of the glamour breaking. When he hissed at Lucius, a forked tongue stabbed past glistening fangs.

Lucius could feel the shadows around the shop bending. He ignored them. Yes, Seth could easily destroy him—and, even more than that, the creature who lived in the shadows here could destroy him—but that didn't mean he had to be afraid. He had a bargaining chip far greater than the challenge of forging chains such as he wanted.

"There is another halfling like you," he told Seth, just as the shadows crept around his ankles.

Seth flung up a hand, and the shadows halted. Lucius saw them coil out of the corner of his eye, forming themselves into a mighty snake with no head, but several reaching arms and many champing teeth. He nodded slightly. Seth's father had been an ordinary wizard, but he had traveled between the paths of Dark and Light and sought—or perhaps been taken as—a mate by a female of that race of headless creatures who had once hunted wizards.

"You are lying," Seth breathed.

"I am not," said Lucius, without turning a hair. "You could tell if I were lying, Master Shadow-Weaver. She is the daughter of one of the Yaxleys. Jacinth is her name, and Lazuli Yaxley is her mother. Her father stays near her even as your mother does you." He nodded to the shadow watching him, and forced himself not to flinch when he felt teeth scraping gently along his cheek, shedding a layer of skin off. "She has not, of course, announced that she would like to live without a glamour—she is not stupid, and her mother knows the temperament of the Ministry right now—but her mother is determined to have that freedom for her someday, and the _vates_ has promised to see that she achieves it."

"So he will help halflings?" Seth breathed. "Not only magical creatures, and not only wizards, but those of us who are both?"

"Yes," said Lucius, and this time the emotion he hid was disgust. He did not care how much Harry was committed to helping creatures like this. They were still reapers of flesh and blood, and their kind had been enemies of wizards for generations on generations. To cross one's blood with them was worse than merely tolerating their existence. "And I will put you in contact with Lazuli Yaxley—_if_ you forge me the chains that I requested."

Seth looked at him in silence.

"I know that you can blend silver and hatred," Lucius said coldly. "Your mother's kind hunt between Dark and Light. Your skill is mating the impossible. You can do this."

Seth inclined his head slowly. "I can," he said. Long practice had evidently given his tongue the ability to move between those teeth and still produce reasonable English. "May I inquire when you want the chains, and for what purpose?"

"No later than the second night of the full moon," said Lucius. "And they are to capture and hold a werewolf who hates me."

No more explanation was needed. He handed over the little payment Seth required of him, and left the smith and his strange mother behind. He had already resumed his glamour before Lucius left the shop.

Lucius walked away with a faint smile. He had his plans on how to matter, how to work his way into people's lives, even now. And putting Harry in contact with another halfling would help insure his continued importance.

Now he must do what he could to find Hawthorn—the location of the burrow had faded in his mind when his service to Voldemort ended, and he had never approached it save by Apparating in any case—and taunt her so that she would come after him.

He intended to catch and hold her in werewolf form with the chains Seth would forge, but in order to get her close enough to catch in the first place, he would need to use himself as bait.


	48. Their Sacrifice

**Chapter Thirty-Six: Their Sacrifice**

Harry opened his eyes slowly. As an immediate improvement, he thought, the lack of screaming pain in his right arm was hard to defeat.

He became aware of someone holding his left hand and restricting him from moving it when he tried to reach for his glasses. Blearily, he turned his head and fixed his eyes on Draco, who sat in a chair next to his bed.

"Hello," Draco breathed.

Harry stirred for a moment, then lay back against the sheets; even he wasn't sure what he would have done or said. The look in Draco's eyes had caught him entirely off-guard. It simply said that Draco was glad to have him back, and probably glad that his arm no longer hurt him. There was none of the scolding Harry had feared, no certainty that he was an idiot and Draco was always right, right, right.

_Maybe right now there isn't. Does that mean he isn't going to talk to me about my arm?_

Draco dashed that conception to pieces a moment later when he said, "How are you feeling?"

"Better than I was." Harry deliberately shifted, and though the blankets rasped against his skin, it only felt like an itch, not the pain of a torch it had before. Taking a deep breath, he looked at it.

The blackness was almost entirely gone, except for a few flakes and slivers still embedded in the new, red-rough skin, which reminded Harry of a sausage with how shiny and stretched it was. His hand had two healthy-looking fingers, the smallest and the thumb, and crisp black in between. He stretched them, and hissed, wincing.

"Madam Pomfrey did say the hand would take longer to heal," said Draco. "Something about more delicate nerves in the fingertips, I think. But the rest of it feels better?"

Harry nodded. "I don't remember much about the past few days," he said, and blinked at how hoarse his voice sounded. Well, that told him _one_ thing about those days, even before Draco murmured it.

"There was a lot of screaming. Professor Snape wasn't kidding about how painful that potion was." When Harry flicked a glance at him, Draco was pale. "I can see why some people would prefer to die rather than undergo it."

Harry could access hazy memories of true agony, the kind that might drive him to the edge of sanity, if he reached for them. He didn't reach for them. "How long was I under the potion's influence?" he asked.

"This is the second day." Draco retrieved his glasses for him then, and slid them over his nose, his touch lingering on Harry's cheeks. He still hadn't let go of his left hand. "You've had visitors, but nothing that can't wait. Voldemort hasn't made any attacks." He grinned, abruptly, the kind of grin that reminded Harry his Animagus form was a fox. "And Snape and your brother have both been dancing attendance on you like hens with one chick."

Harry could feel himself flush in embarrassment, but—well, he could not blame them. If he'd been screaming as hard as his throat suggested, he would have inspired concern.

And—

And Draco was here, too, sitting beside him, notwithstanding the argument they'd had before he passed out, apparently. Harry took his lip between his teeth and worried it wildly. He could remember Draco coming in and sitting with him _before_ the potion took hold, too, now that he thought of it.

_Does that mean he's not going to scold me?_

The silence between them felt as raw and stretched as the skin on his arm to Harry. Draco seemed comfortable with it, but then, he might have had a few days to make up his mind what he was going to say.

"Listen, Draco," Harry began, deciding he should broach the subject first. "I'm sorry if I caused you distress with—"

He blinked as a finger was laid on his lips. Draco sat back when he'd fallen silent and regarded him with a calmness that made tears prick at Harry's eyes. It was a moment before he realized why. It reminded him of Narcissa. He looked away.

"I'm doing well, Harry," Draco said. "I promise you. I'm not completely recovered from her death—" his breath hitched a little "—and I probably never will be. But you had a point. Yelling at you for what you've done makes next to no progress between us. I resent you for not listening to me, and you resent me for treating you like a child." Draco cocked his head, face still serene, though Harry thought he could see how much effort the mask was taking now. "So we'll try to change the way we speak to each other so as not to include that. It'll call for efforts—"

"Sacrifices?" Harry asked, wondering if Draco really could change something that had been intrinsic to the way he spoke to Harry since they met. Among the first words they ever exchanged had been Draco scolding him for not calling him by his first name just after Harry was Sorted into Slytherin.

"_Efforts_," Draco said, emphasizing the word and giving him a little glare, "from both of us. This matters, Harry. It matters more than anything we've ever done, and I don't intend to let us slip back into a silence that hurts _both_ of us." His other hand reached forward and came to rest over Harry's heart. Harry shifted, feeling vulnerable, but Draco didn't move away. "So. Please. I'll listen without scolding, and you'll tell me what's wrong. _Please_ tell me what's wrong."

Harry wanted to pull back and raise the defensive shell he'd perfected in the last few months. Surely, if he trusted Draco not to scold, it wouldn't work. That was just what _happened_. Harry couldn't ask him to change, so the best thing would be to ignore it. Wouldn't this effort to change, to force an unnatural bend into their bond with each other, end up hurting them both?

But…

He _wanted_ to trust Draco. And Draco had said he was doing this of his own free will, not because he felt compelled by Harry's magic or the threat of losing him. Distrusting his intentions now would call for a spasm of suspicion on Harry's part that he didn't feel capable of making.

And, Merlin, he did want to talk to someone.

_Leaping off this cliff is no different than all the other cliffs you've leaped off._

"All right," he said quietly. "But—I don't think I'll be able to talk about everything right away."

"I wouldn't expect you to." Draco's voice had softened to nearly the croon Harry had used with him when he was grieving, and he grasped Harry's chin and tilted his face back towards him. "What about talking to Snape? Can you do that?"

"The last thing he did was call me an idiot," Harry said, feeling that old weariness rise up. "I don't think I can ever change the fact that that's what I am in his eyes."

"He also brewed the potion that healed your arm." The _lack_ of chiding in Draco's voice was what made him flush this time. "He loves you, Harry. No, he doesn't always express it well. And no, I don't think it's fair that he calls you an idiot so much of the time and nothing else. But that's another set of efforts that both of you will have to make. Can you do that?"

"It's not fair," said Harry after a moment, "when you ask things instead of demanding them, you know."

"Why not?"

Harry buried his head against his knees, feeling as though his life had just leaped into a dimension he had always wanted to see but never believed it possible to walk to. "Because," he muttered, voice muffled by the cloth, "it makes me want to do them."

Draco's laugh was quiet, and he leaned against Harry in a flush of warmth from neck to hip. His hand stroked Harry's hair in that possessive gesture he loved to make, but which now struck Harry as less a movement of ownership than of love. "That's good, then," he said.

Harry released a shaky breath. "I'll try."

"Good." Draco pulled back and tilted his head up again, though Harry would have preferred to keep it bowed and sheltered. His eyes were mercilessly kind, which should have warned Harry what he was going to ask, but didn't do it in time. "Are you going to talk about what you felt for my mother's death now?"

Harry blinked and swallowed. "Do you want to hear—"

"_Yes._" Draco's voice was fierce. "I'm not as noble as you are, Harry. I don't do things out of duty that often, or just because I think someone else needs them. When I ask what you think, I want to hear what you think." The pressure against Harry's body increased, and then he found himself turned around and laid sideways in Draco's arms, so that his head was tucked beneath his chin. Draco nestled his head hard into Harry's hair and blew it out of the way.

"It would comfort me to know that someone else was grieving her openly," Draco murmured. "Most people have stayed out of my way, respecting my grief—or your magic, I'm not sure which—and of course far be it from Lucius to show emotion more than once." Harry heard bitterness running under the surface of his voice, but it was gone before he could ask about it. "Now. Tell me."

Harry swallowed, and swallowed again. If he let himself go now, he wasn't sure he could pull back behind the barriers if this didn't work. Draco would probably say that was a good thing, but with the war effort going on…Harry was not as sure.

But sometimes he had to make leaps. Sometimes he had to trust what people said, instead of demanding solid proof.

He laid his head back against Draco's chest, closed his eyes, and began to speak.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Connor was waiting when Harry came out of the hospital wing, leaning on Draco and talking to him in a low voice. Connor frowned when he saw tear trails on his brother's cheeks. _What was he crying about? Does his arm still hurt that much?_

"_Harry!_" he said, making his presence known, when he thought they would both have walked past the alcove where he stood.

Harry turned, and welcomed him with a broad smile. Connor controlled his immediate impulse to embrace him, though, given that he wasn't sure his arm was completely healed. He settled for dancing around him and slapping his back in an awkward manner, then hugging him from the left side.

He probably looked ridiculous. But _Merlin_, it was good to see Harry back on his feet again and with two normal arms instead of one that was made of flesh and bone and one that was made of burned wedding cake, at least to the smell.

"How are you, Connor?" Harry asked, putting out a hand to touch Connor's as he drew back from the hug. "How are matters with Parvati's parents?"

Connor snorted. "Proceeding." The Patils had invoked several ancient laws that no one paid much attention to any more from the Ministry's books, trying to argue that their daughters should be returned to them under marriage bonds and the conditions of something called the "return of virgins." Parvati had fought that one by sending a very detailed description to her parents of what she and Connor had done so far, and how even a deep enough kiss made her ineligible for that law. Padma and Luna had done even more, apparently, and this had so shocked the Patils that they had been silent for the last few days.

"And how's your arm?" he added quickly, suddenly remembering that one of Harry's favorite tactics to get people to stop paying attention to him was to mention their own problems.

"I'll live," said Harry. "It feels much better, though it'll take me a few weeks to regain full use of my hand. Draco said that you were dancing around the bed while I was unconscious." He met Connor's eyes and held them. "Thank you."

Connor waited a moment to see if Harry would say anything about Snape, but that appeared to be it. So he could graciously nod, instead of stumbling into a hasty explanation. Draco hadn't told Harry, evidently, that Connor had earned a detention for hexing Snape. Of course, if they had only _told_ him about the potion in the first place, instead of coming in and dumping it all over Harry's arm without warning and sending him into a screaming fit like nothing human, then there would have been no need for hexes and no need for detention.

"Did you tell him about the visitors from the Squibs' Association?" he added to Draco.

Harry immediately stood taller, and Draco glared. Connor supposed he'd been saving that news, too, until Harry was stronger. He just shrugged in the face of his brother-in-law's glare, though. The request that the Squibs' Association had for Harry wasn't like any request he'd got from anyone else. He should know about it and face it as soon as possible.

In Connor's opinion, there was really only one sound, sane decision to be made concerning their offer, but this was Harry. He would find six exceptions before breakfast.

"What about them?" Harry asked, and it was his Savior Voice. Connor made a face at him, which caused Harry to blink and cock his head a bit, and made him look more human. Connor approved. He wanted his brother to be around more often, not the Savior.

"They came to offer _you_ help, you know, not request it," Connor said. "And I think you should take the offer. You won't _want_ to. You won't think they can spare it. But they said they want to, and a _vates_ is all about free will, and so you can't stop people from helping you when they want to." He wondered if Harry would admire the elegant logic of this argument. Probably not. He was about to come up with an exception again, according to the way his face worked.

"I don't know what their offer is," Harry said.

_Oh. Well, that changes things._ But Connor was happy to explain. Draco's glare just grew more and more murderous, and he was tugging at Harry's shoulder as if he would spirit him away up the hall and make him stop listening. Therefore, it was on Connor's shoulders to prepare his brother.

"Most of the wizards and witches who work with Squibs don't have very much magic," Connor explained. "They're the only ones who can work closely with them, or otherwise there's just too many jealousies and rivalries." He felt he knew a great deal about it, after one of the visitors had cornered him and talked to him at length.

"That, and full-fledged wizards and witches don't want to associate with _Squibs,_" Draco muttered.

Harry frowned at him. Connor said, "Don't be an arse, Malfoy, though I know it's very hard for you," and went on, because that was really all the notice Draco's comment deserved. "So they've decided, now, that they can continue their political work without their magic, which you need more. They want you to drink their magic with the _absorbere_ gift, and become stronger to fight Voldemort."

Harry blinked. Then he blinked again.

Then he blanched, and shook his head.

"_Idiot_," Draco hissed at Connor. "I was going to take time to prepare him, and—"

"No one wants to hear about your sex life, Malfoy," Connor pointed out, more intent on watching his brother's face. "He needed to hear this, and it's better he did before one of them tracks him down. Stop shaking your head, Harry. They _want_ to offer it, you know."

Draco was spluttering in incoherent rage. Connor thought it was a good look for him. If nothing else, it meant he could continue the argument with Harry, and Draco couldn't throw in one of his distracting little asides.

"I don't want it," Harry said stubbornly. "I never—I _can't_. I can't make someone into a Squib who hasn't done anything wrong. I've always used that as a punishment, not a gift—"

"They want to give it over," said Connor. He had decided to keep hitting that one point. Harry respected free will. Sooner or later, he would have to respect the free will of people willing to sacrifice their magic. "They want to help in the war because otherwise they can't do much. The Squibs' Association doesn't have much power or prestige in the Ministry right now; they can't help you politically. They won't make a difference on the battlefield. They can throw support behind you in the newspapers, but few people listen to them because of prejudices like the ones Malfoy is spouting." Draco was by now almost blue with fury. Connor resisted the impulse to stick out his tongue at him. _He_ was the patient, mature one right now. It was not his fault if Draco insisted on acting like a child. "Their magic _can_ help you. Are you going to deny them the only way they can really participate in the war?"

Harry was white-faced and silent. That left Draco room to jump in, which Connor regretted.

"He shouldn't have to make a decision like this right now," Draco snarled, his voice so low that it sounded like some sort of troll talking. "He's barely out of the hospital bed, and they can wait—"

"You only think their cause is less important than others because of your idiotic prejudices," Connor pointed out. _Calmly, with only one insult, and full of good sense. I win this exchange. _"And I think Harry should be able to decide what he wants to face. At least this gives him a little time to think about it."

Harry bowed his head. Then he muttered, "Yes. I need time to think about it."

He started to break away from Draco, but Draco pulled him back against his side, and murmured into his ear. Connor strained to listen, and still hardly managed to catch the whispered words. "You can think in our bedroom and in my presence as well as anywhere else, yes? And I promise to give you silence if that's what you need, and only offer my opinion if you want it."

Harry hesitated.

"Efforts from both of us," Draco said, which Connor didn't understand, but which made Harry relax in his grip.

"You're right," he said, and nodded to Connor. "If you talk to one of them, let them know I'll have decided by noon tomorrow."

He and Draco went towards the dungeons then, leaving Connor behind with a furrowed brow. He knew he'd won. He knew he'd done the right thing in bringing this to Harry's attention now, so he wouldn't suddenly have it sprung on him when one of the members of the Squibs' Association managed to find him.

And still he felt that Draco had the deeper bond with his brother, had won the war if not the battle.

It was infuriating, sometimes.

SSSSSSSSSSS

Draco had kept his word. Though he longed to tell Harry that he thought he should accept the offer of those wizards and witches foolish enough to make it—they were barely above Squibs anyway, and they wanted to associate with them, so why not give them more in common?—he held his tongue and watched as Harry sat on the end of their bed, his fingers rapping up and down the blankets.

He wanted to know what Harry was thinking, but Harry hadn't yet offered to share. And Draco refused to get into ridiculous complexities of thought, thinking about asking about asking. He lay back with his arms behind his head and studied the canopy, and thought of Potter's ridiculous behavior instead.

He seemed to believe that Draco's closeness to Harry would involve exiling him from Harry's side, and he was only totally at ease when Harry showed a preference for neither of them or when he was winning. Draco snorted. The fool had changed in some ways, but he didn't seem to have accepted the fact that they had to deal with what they had, not what they wished they had.

_Let us ignore the fact that you didn't acknowledge that yourself until a few days ago, _a voice that sounded like Potter's whispered into his ear.

_Why, yes, let us ignore it, _Draco thought, and went on with the real business of his mind, which didn't include listening to his Potter-sounding conscience.

Connor might wish that he could be Harry's perfect match in battle and as a twin again, but he couldn't. Things had changed too much from the days when Harry served him. And he also seemed to believe that Draco's opinions were worth less than his own because he had been raised pureblood and of the Dark.

_Fuck that._

Draco had already decided that he would be the more mature one. The fact that Connor had had to resort to insults in their latest competition only meant that Draco _was_ an adult, and he a child. Draco would be the one who made rational arguments, who pointed out the necessities of war—which included letting Harry know about the Squibs' Association at some point—_and_ the necessities of having their leader rested and not preoccupied with minor matters—which included giving him some time to recover before he was assaulted with more responsibilities.

That had three advantages. First, it would change their relationship, and that should, hopefully, force Potter to grow up. Second, it would show Harry that his was the more adult voice, the one to be trusted if Harry had to make a choice. Third, it would give him immense personal satisfaction.

"Draco?"

He sat up at once, and moved down the bed until he sat beside Harry. "Yes?" he asked mildly.

Harry leaned back against one of the bedposts and regarded him in silence. Argutus had crawled into his lap as he dithered, or debated, with himself, and Harry's left hand absently stroked his scales. Draco was pleased to see that the Omen snake was nudging at Harry's clawed right hand, his tongue moving in small flickering motions that were probably hisses of concern. "Do you really think it doesn't matter if I take their magic?"

Draco raised his eyebrows. "Absolutely not. Much as I hate to grant him any credit at this point, Connor was right when he said they chose to give it up of their own free will. It'll make you stronger. It'll mark you as someone who lets even the weak help, as much as they can."

"It could also make the Ministry think that I'm someone who drains any magic to become more powerful," Harry muttered. "And Merlin knows how Juniper would take that at this point."

"Let them think that," said Draco. He hadn't spent all his time in the past two days simply sitting at Harry's side. He'd also taken the time to read the newspapers, and he was confident that Harry's public image was better than he thought it was. "It won't change the minds of anyone who doesn't already want to believe the worst. And you can articulate your principles to anyone who's concerned. You take the magic of enemies and the magic that's freely offered, and that's _it._"

Harry's teeth were carving marks in his lip. He didn't reply.

"Can I ask," Draco said, "why you think you—" He stopped. _No, he hasn't said that he thinks he can win the war without drinking magic. I won't put words in his mouth, since he was so adamant about that last time. _"Why don't you want to take their magic, Harry?" he asked at last.

"It's another sacrifice," Harry snapped at once. "I'm not adverse to making them. I don't want other people to make them."

"Even when they choose to?"

Narcissa's ghost hung like tangible mist between them. Harry drew several deep breaths. "We knew sacrifices were going to be necessary to destroy the Horcruxes," he said. "I can live with that. I don't know that I can live with people giving up their magic to me."

"But you wouldn't mind that much if I were the one who could drink it," said Draco.

Harry jerked away as if stung, but Draco caught his chin and turned his face towards him, as he had in the hospital wing. Harry stopped trying to pull away at the look in his eyes, or perhaps the expression on his face; it had to be one of the two, Draco thought.

"That's the difference," Draco said. This time, he didn't think he was putting words in Harry's mouth. He only thought he was right. Truths twirled and spun around him like dropping swords, and he was, without warning, in the middle of that mental world he'd entered to convince his father to make him magical heir, and when he'd achieved his Animagus form. "It's not so much the freely chosen sacrifice you mind, or even the draining of magic. You don't resent Voldemort for having that ability. But _you_ don't want the power."

Harry was silent.

"It won't corrupt you." Draco reached out and drew his hands up Harry's sides, ruffling the cloth of his robes over his ribs. "I promise, Harry. Just because you grow more powerful doesn't mean you'll become a Dark Lord."

"It's more than that," Harry whispered. "I don't _want_ to be more powerful, Draco. I don't want as much magic as I have."

Draco blinked. He couldn't remember Harry expressing the thought in that form before. "And why not?" he asked, after he had tried to understand it several times and couldn't. More power was _always_ a good thing, if only to prevent one's enemies from accumulating it.

"I don't want it," said Harry. "It's just—I could do many of the things that I do now if I were as powerful as Snape, Draco, and no stronger, or as strong as Indigena Yaxley. And how I gained it was mostly accidental." He paused, then pushed forward through a barrier Draco could almost feel. "And I don't want the dark part of myself to have access to it."

Draco leaned forward and kissed him softly. Harry responded, though Draco could feel the confusion in the gesture.

When he thought Harry was pleasantly dazed, Draco sat back and said, as softly, "I promise, Harry, a small increase of magic at this point won't matter. And you'll have both me and Snape—and your brother, and any number of allies and friends—watching your back. If we see signs of your abusing your magic, be _sure_ that you we'll tell you. You don't have many meek people around you, you know."

That won him a smile. Then Harry's eyes clouded again. "And you do believe that that darkness exists in me?"

"I felt it the night Voldemort attacked Malfoy Manor." Draco ran another comforting hand up his side. "And I'll get to see it more closely come our Halloween ritual." He raised an eyebrow when he saw Harry's blank expression. "Or did you forget that that ritual is called the Casting of Shadows?"

Harry gave a shiver, and then said, "We'll worry about that when it comes." He reached out and squeezed Draco's wrist hard enough to hurt, but Draco didn't mind. If it meant what he thought it meant, at least.

And it did. Harry said, "I'll go to them, meet with them, and—make sure they're still serious about this. Then, if they are, I'll accept that magic."

SSSSSSS

"Thank you for coming, Mr. Potter—excuse me, _vates_," the old witch who'd met him at the door of the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom corrected herself. Harry found himself the object of a piercing, blue-eyed gaze that made him fight the impulse to step back, even though she was far shorter than he was. "My name is Theresa Keller. If you'll come inside?"

Harry stepped inside, glancing around. It seemed that everyone in the room was a weak wizard or witch, and not a Squib. And it made sense that they'd chosen the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom; it was the most heavily warded room in the school outside the Headmistress's office and the House common rooms. If something went wrong, the wards would provide protection.

It felt a bit strange to have so many eyes fixed on him, and stranger considering what he would do in a few moments. Harry felt a wave of reluctance, and nodded to Keller.

"Madam, have you changed your minds—"

"Absolutely not, _vates_." Keller came closer to him, and again Harry had to look into her eyes. Merlin, she moved like a queen. Harry could only imagine how much she must have practiced that, in a world where many people would look down on her for her low level of magic. "We discussed this for months before we approached you, since the war first began. We want to give you our magic. And we want you to use it against the snake-faced murderer and his minions."

She took out her wand and laid it down on the floor in front of her, never removing her gaze from Harry's. The others all copied her. Harry could see a few of them sweating, but it seemed that none of them were about to back out.

So he couldn't, either.

With a shudder of revulsion pouring down his spine, Harry opened his _absorbere_ gift and began to drain them.

Keller, too, shuddered as her magic faded, but she shook her head and stood straighter afterwards, as if he had actually relieved her of a burden. Then others began to do the same. Harry did see tears on the cheeks of one woman, and he would have paused if he could, but she caught his eye and motioned him onwards with an impatient hand.

Harry did his best not to think about the magic passing into his gullet. Most of it was Light, and most of it tasted much better than anything else he'd absorbed. Even the Black artifacts tended to have an edge of Darkness to them that made them less fully comfortable to hold in his stomach.

And he held down the gibbering, mad fear of what he would become now with a boot on its neck. He had made the decision. He had said once that he would accept whatever someone else did of his or her own free will, as long as that action harmed no one else's free will. And this was a gift other people were giving not for love of him—which would have made it impossible to bear—but for the war.

He had to put some of his more delicate sensibilities aside.

Of course, then he had to wonder if putting them aside meant he was forsaking his own principles, bending them for the sake of expediency, and that led him to the idea that it would be more selfish _not_ to have taken the magic, and that made him accuse himself of excusing his own selfishness, and that sent him whirling down an endless chain of spiral thought, with only one answer at the bottom of it:

_I don't know._

He finished the draining at last. Keller nodded to him and turned one hand over, as if to examine what it looked like without magic.

"Thank you, _vates_," she said. "Now we can be sure that we are part of something greater, and not feel useless."

A wave of similar thanks rose from the others in the room. Harry nodded and smiled as much as he could, and left as soon as he could. He could feel the churning in his gut, and knew what would happen in a moment.

He ran to the closest loo, and only just made it before he sank to his knees, vomiting. He would not release the magic he'd swallowed, but the intense nausea had to come out _somehow_, and so it chose his physical stomach.

Harry closed his eyes when he was done, and shivered. He had made what he thought was the right decision, after listening to Draco's arguments, and Connor's, and the free will of those who wanted to give their magic up. He could only hope that this wouldn't prove to be the first step on a slippery slope.

He didn't know if it was. He didn't know if it wasn't.

The only thing he was certain of at that moment was that he wished he had been born an ordinary wizard, not subject to either such extremes of magic or the exhaustion of such decisions.

The burden had to be carried. That didn't mean he always wanted to carry it.


	49. Duramus, All the World

**Chapter Thirty-Seven: _Duramus_, All The World**

Harry opened his eyes, and shivered. He felt as though all the skin on his body was rising, the way it did when Draco pinched a small fold of it, and tugging him towards the door of their bedroom.

Draco sprawled next to him, sleeping soundly, as the small snores made clear. He wasn't the source of this. Harry frowned and closed his eyes again as the magic traveled up and down, bothering his skin, worrying at it. He gnawed his lip several times, and wondered if the effect would go away if he continued to ignore it.

It didn't. Instead, it grew worse, with the pinch becoming actual pain. Harry hissed between his teeth, but sat up and turned slightly in the direction of the door.

Three things happened. The pinch eased off. Draco's arm fell across the empty space where he'd been, and he grumbled under his breath. And Argutus swarmed up the bed, his scales gleaming dully in the faint light Harry'd raised along his arm to see if he recognized the operation of a spell.

"_You shouldn't leave without an escort,_" Argutus hissed. "_Summon the one who smells like rose petals, and not the one who smells like self-pity. I want you properly guarded._"

Harry shook his head. "I don't intend to leave the room," he said. "I—"

The pinch immediately grew worse, tugging at him again. Harry let out a hiss that had nothing to do with Parseltongue, and which made Argutus curl his tail around his waist and tap him sharply on the hip.

"_You have to leave,_" the Omen snake insisted. "_But take someone with you. That's a simple compromise._" He paused abruptly, tilting his head in the direction of the bedroom door, and flicked his tongue out. "_The one who smells like rose petals is already on the way from his room_," he announced. "_The pain in your head has roused him in his arm._" He sounded fascinated. This wasn't the first time he'd displayed that curiosity about the lightning bolt scars of the sworn companions, Harry knew, but he had never managed to explain them to Argutus's satisfaction.

Owen was coming, then. Harry sighed and held out his left arm so that Argutus could coil around it; he doubted his right arm could bear the weight right now. Argutus carefully arranged himself so that he didn't touch Harry's right arm, either, and wrapped the last fold of his neck around Harry's throat. Harry felt enveloped in warmth as he followed the pinch, and had to admit that it was better than going to face whatever this threat was alone.

Then he blinked and turned back, lifting his left hand and making Argutus shift in irritation. "_The one who smells like rose petals is waiting,_" he reminded Harry.

"I'm just leaving a message for Draco," said Harry absently, and used his magic to create letters that would hang in the air and start gleaming like fire only when Draco woke, so they wouldn't disturb his sleep before then. Harry explained that he'd felt the call of some magic that hurt him when he resisted, and he was going to find out what it was, but he'd taken Argutus and Owen with him. _There, at least that will prevent him from panicking if he wakes._

He slipped out the door, and found Owen on the stairs. "What is it?" he asked, looking around as if he expected Death Eaters to burst through the walls. Given who he was, Harry thought the suspicion less ridiculous than it might have been in other circumstances.

"I don't know," Harry answered, and then nearly tripped down the stairs as the pinch and the pull intensified. "But whatever it is, it wants me out of the Slytherin common room." He made his way to the door of the common room. Owen's breath was practically stirring the hair at his neck, so closely did he follow. Once again, Harry could hardly blame him.

In the dungeon corridors, the pull changed to lead him upward. And it remained upwards no matter how many stairs they traversed, making Harry wonder if they would come out on the Astronomy Tower again.

As it turned out, they did. Then the pinch halted, and the pull ceased, and Harry looked around with a small frown. He couldn't see anyone waiting for him, and there was no sign of powerful magic or the manifestations that usually accompanied it, such as storms. In the distance, the Forbidden Forest lay quiet and dark under the slowly waxing moon, and the darkness shone with stars. It was a clear night, but not wondrous in any way.

No, wait, Harry saw, as he lifted his head and realized that some of the stars were vanishing and then reappearing again, as if something flew in front of them and blocked out their light briefly. He raised a hand, ready to fight if Voldemort had sent a dragon or something else to plague him.

The darkness in front of him grew a head, a neck, a long, slender body, and then an even more slender tail. Harry found himself faced with a manticore, perfect in every line from the human head to the scorpion tail.

Save for its color, of course, which was dark green.

Harry lowered his hand slowly. He knew that a manifestation of the wild Dark faced him. What he couldn't understand was why. It was a long way from Walpurgis, and even twenty days from Halloween, which was the counterpart of Walpurgis at this end of the year. Why bring him over the walls merely to see a new form?

The manticore stalked back and forth on the battlements, eyes on him all the time. Harry made sure to stand still. The wild Dark was changeable, everything from a spoiled child to a murderous river in flood. He wasn't sure what its mood was at this point, other than that it was contemplating him first instead of ordering him around.

Then the manticore lunged forward, tail striking for his shoulder.

Harry rolled out of the way before he even considered that perhaps this was a test and he should have let the sting descend. When the tail clattered on the stone and the manticore snarled in displeasure, however, he decided he'd been right to move.

He rose to one knee, and met the wild Dark eye to eye.

The hatred there astonished him. Then he shrugged angrily. _So what? It was on my side at Walpurgis when we defeated Falco, but that was mainly because Falco had assumed he could play with it, take what he wanted from it without paying the price, and it would never find out. It could as easily change its mind and decide that I annoyed it next. I wish I knew what I'd done to annoy it, though._

The manticore abruptly leaped, rising above Harry's head and losing substance to spread out as a cloud. Harry prepared a wind to travel around him if necessary and whip the cloud away, to keep it from choking or poisoning any of the castle's inhabitants.

Instead of doing that, however, the manticore seemed intent on constructing an image or illusion. Harry watched in silence as the dark green smoke writhed and danced like a tangle of snakes, and then rushed together in an explosion, and then spread out again. If it was meant to represent something, he didn't recognize it, he decided, his mind clearer and colder than he would have thought it could be. The message was useless.

Perhaps the wild Dark knew that, because the next moment the cloud turned and soared away towards the Forbidden Forest. The sense of brooding hostility and power went with it, and Harry was sure that no one would pinch his skin now if he wanted to go back down and sleep beside Draco.

"What was that?" Owen whispered behind him.

"The wild Dark is displeased with me, apparently," Harry murmured. "But I don't know why. The last time it seemed this angry, it was because Voldemort and I had caused a great deal of magical damage at Midsummer, and it was taking the excuse to behave like a spoiled child at Midwinter. But I don't know what I've done this time."

"What if it's not displeased with you so much as pleased with someone else?" Owen suggested, and his voice had gone tense and tight in a way that resembled the tug on Harry's skin. "Voldemort, perhaps?"

"I can't see it serving him," Harry said. "The wild Dark puts itself in service to nothing. And he tried to capture its power once before, at Walpurgis. It has good reason to hate him."

"Then I don't know, my l—_vates_." The eager tone had drained out of Owen's voice. "Do you wish to go back to the Slytherin common room?"

"Yes," said Harry, after a long moment of lingering and studying the sky. "I don't think there's anything we can learn here."

SSSSSSSSSSS

Harry eyed the Hufflepuff table as he conjured a bowl of cornflakes from a tattered pillow. Something had happened in that House overnight, it seemed. Several older students sat with their arms around younger ones, reassuring them. Others cried, but tried to keep their tears hidden. Zacharias Smith's face was like stone.

When McGonagall came in, grave, and clapped her hands to signal an announcement, Harry was sure of it. He wondered whether a Death Eater had been discovered among them.

Instead, McGonagall said, "A young Hufflepuff girl, Jessica Farthing, has gone missing." The babble of whispers and gasps that rose up then almost overwhelmed her, but the Headmistress gamely lifted her voice and went on. "So far as we can tell, there has been no breach in the wards, and there is no sign that You-Know-Who is involved."

That terrified rather than reassured them, Harry saw with a single swift glance around the room. If it wasn't Voldemort coming through the wards to kidnap students, that suggested there was someone else in the school taking them, and who could it be and how could they be stopped?

"There are, at this point, no clues as to where she might have disappeared," McGonagall continued, her face pale and her eyes overly bright. "There were no signs of a struggle, and no sign of blood or magic. Jessica's wand remained where she had placed it, and none of her possession were taken." Harry winced. By the expressions around him, he wasn't the only one who had made the connection: whoever had snatched Jessica seemed to have little interest in her comfort _or_ her survival. "The other girls in the room with her heard nothing. The only thing that had changed at all from the evening before was that the torches in her room had burned out."

Harry froze. His mind was filled with a vision of darkness moving in slowly from the walls, snuffing the torches, and then wrapping dark green claws around Jessica before she could scream.

He shuddered and folded his arms around himself. Immediately, Millicent leaned towards him, frowning.

"What is it?" she whispered, which made Draco turn around, and then lean in to rub Harry's back when he saw the state he was in.

"I think I know the reason she disappeared," Harry said.

"Well?" Millicent prompted. "_Tell_ us, for Merlin's sake." Her eyes had narrowed, and when Harry looked at her, one hand was twitching, as though she were trying to control the impulse to hit something.

"The wild Dark," said Harry quietly. "It summoned me to the battlements last night. It was angry about something, I don't know what. It wore the form of a manticore, and it tried to sting me. And the Headmistress said that all the torches in Jessica's room went out. I don't think that's a coincidence, as much as I wish it was."

McGonagall was saying something about people not walking alone now. Harry nodded along with the other students, though he had his doubts about whether that would work. They could resist Voldemort as long as they stayed behind strong enough wards. They could flee him, too; some people had already accepted the offer of sanctuary in France. But what could they do against the wild Dark? It could pierce the wards whenever it wanted, take whoever it liked, and pursue people to other countries if it wished.

And Harry didn't know what it _did_ wish. Its temperament was so unpredictable that it might not steal another child, or it might decide to take half the population of Slytherin. He found his heart aching as he looked towards the Slytherin first-years. Their House had been so proud to receive them, the largest share of the Sorting, the largest group of Slytherins they'd had in years. And now they might be more vulnerable than anyone else, if the wild Dark decided to extend its anger at Harry to his House.

Draco's hand, pinching a nerve on his arm to make him pay attention, caused Harry to shake his head and return to himself. Draco's eyes were intent. "I think you should tell the Headmistress," he said. "She's ultimately the one responsible for the children of Hogwarts, and so she's ultimately the one who needs to decide what to do."

Harry nodded, acknowledging the truth of that statement, and then stood. The Headmistress was making her way out of the room. He and Draco followed, and caught her near the doors.

McGonagall didn't even look surprised as she surveyed them. Harry supposed she had become used to linking strange occurrences and him. "My office, Harry," she murmured, and walked up the corridor.

Harry followed her, wondering if Hogwarts would have to close. If it did, he knew the safehouses he would recommend that people enter, and the offer of sanctuary in France might become more important than ever.

He was not sure what would happen to his own war effort without the library of books, the tense guard they were keeping on the Sword Horcrux, the central location that gave them a place to meet in crises—

And the sense of safety and security that the wild Dark had ripped away with one capture.

SSSSSSSSSSS

Minerva narrowly studied Harry. She had to admit that his theory made sense, though without more proof she was reluctant to accept it completely. And if the Ministry got to hear of it, they would demand the closing of Hogwarts, as they had before the term began, and all her time would be spent fighting that battle instead of attending to her students and her school the way she needed to.

Then she pushed the thought away. _Closing the school is a last resort, even in the middle of a war. If the disappearances get worse, it will be necessary, but we should make the point, in that case, that the wild Dark can take the children wherever they are, whenever it wants. _Minerva shivered despite herself, and looked at a shadow cast by one of the torches. _It is terrifying. But we cannot give up, even if the wild Dark is working with Voldemort. Too much depends on our winning the war for us to give up._

"Headmistress?"

Harry's voice drew her attention back towards him. He was sitting up, his hands clasped in front of him and his gaze direct. "Are you going to close the school?" he asked.

"I don't know yet," Minerva said. "There isn't enough evidence. But if this is the only disappearance, then no. I wish to show those who might doubt that the war _cannot_ destroy every facet of normal life. Hogwarts has remained open through wars, invasions, and the rises of other Dark Lords, and it has always offered sanctuary and safety to all who pass its gates. I would continue to do that."

"And if it's not possible?" Harry asked.

"Then and only then will I close it," said Minerva. "But if this is the only disappearance—"

"I can't guarantee that it will be." Harry's voice was soft, and his eyes had gone a dark green. Minerva understood. He wanted her to be absolutely sure of the seriousness of the situation. She already was, however.

"I know that," she said. "For now, we'll make every effort to search for Jessica. It's possible that she may have played a prank, and be hiding somewhere in the school. Mr. Smith tells me that she is the most mischievous of their first-years."

"And she left her wand behind?" Draco Malfoy snorted and crossed his arms over his chest, as if that were a defiance of all common sense.

"She's Muggleborn," Minerva said absently. "More used to doing without it." She shook her head and looked at Harry. "The Ministry will bring pressure to bear on me. I know that. I will still insist on keeping Hogwarts open unless there is no other choice."

Harry nodded in understanding, and then said, "Should we increase the defensive training and the tunnels out of the school we're preparing, Madam?"

"Before we do that, Harry," Minerva said, "we are going to check everyone's left forearms. I do not want us betrayed from the inside."

Harry nodded again. The darkness in his eyes had not truly lessened, but it had fired with a determination to go on that Minerva could feel burning in her own. They did not know the true intentions of the wild Dark yet, and it was probably impossible to determine or predict them completely. There was no absolute safety. What they must do was bow their heads and endure.

Minerva waited until Harry and Draco had left before she turned and glared at the Sword of Gryffindor hanging on the wall in its glass case. It radiated smugness, to her, and a perfectly despicable darkness that made her conscious of her Declaration to the Light as few other things did. She rose, strode across the room, and rapped her knuckles against the glass case.

"We'll destroy you yet," she whispered.

A dark line shimmered along the Horcrux's blade, and it hissed like a cornered viper. Minerva went on staring to show that she was not impressed, and did not care. Tom Riddle frightened her, but he could not make her back down. And a shard of him was less frightening than the full thing.

"You'll pay," she told the sword. "For threatening us, for being what you are, for corrupting the Sword of Gryffindor."

The dark line appeared again, but this time it was shrinking back in wariness. Minerva smirked and turned to decide what she was going to tell the school about the attack of the wild Dark.

SSSSSSSSS

Draco lifted his wand and cast _Lumos_ to light the hallway ahead. After a careful glance down it, he turned and nodded to the three first-years clustered behind him. They immediately followed him like a gaggle of ducklings.

Draco forced down the contempt that might have risen to his throat, and placed protective feelings there instead. He was responsible for escorting the first-years back to their common room. If they reached safety, it was to his credit, and if they didn't, that was to his discredit.

And besides, they were Slytherins, which immediately made them better than some of the other children he could have been escorting. They'd shown little fear, and didn't put up much of a fuss when he told them he'd be leading them around through the dungeons today. In fact, one of them had excitedly asked if he was _the _Draco Malfoy, partner of the Boy-Who-Lived, which had been pleasant. So long as they stayed in light and not shadows, and so long as they didn't ask too many inane questions, Draco didn't find it hard to put up with them.

"What is Harry like?" the same one who had asked him his name asked now, trotting to keep up with him.

Draco snorted and glanced down at her. It had been three days since the Hufflepuff girl's disappearance, and that was obviously long enough for the best of them to recover their spines. "You know what he's like," he pointed out, amused. "You're in the same House with him, and you eat at the same table with him every day."

The girl munched a strand of her hair. "Yes, but never close," she said. "And I don't think anyone knows him like you do."

Draco rather liked that. Whether it was honest appreciation or a bit of flattery that the girl was learning early, it suited her.

"Quiet," he told her, as they rounded a bend in the hallway and Draco again cast _Lumos_ ahead of them. "Much quieter than you'd think someone Lord-level could be." The girl nodded seriously. Draco thought she was Muggleborn, but the smart ones, the ones who knew that other people in Slytherin House wouldn't make exceptions for them, took the time to look up wizarding terms. "And of course he had a horrible childhood, so he learned about compassion and pity and goodness, but also pain. And I'm the one who helped him recover from that pain, to a large extent."

It was no more than the truth. Besides, it made the girl's eyes glow. Draco felt a corresponding swell of pride in his chest.

"You must be a hero," she breathed.

"I've often been called that, by the people who know me." _Stretching the truth a bit does not hurt either._

"What about—"

And then a shadow passed over them, and Draco came to a stop in absolute darkness, heart pounding. He heard a shriek behind him, and spun around, trying his best to raise light against the thick, inky cloud. He couldn't do it. The words froze on his lips, and even seemed to freeze in his mind, so that he couldn't remember the spell. He closed his eyes and shivered.

He recognized the cold presence hovering near him. It had been with him last Midwinter, when he Declared. Harry's suspicion that the wild Dark was behind these attacks was correct.

Startlingly, that just made him angry, instead of longing to crouch in one place and abject terror until the darkness took what it wanted and went away. He lifted his wand, though his arm shook, and snarled, "_Incendio!_"

A torrent of flame sprang from the end of his wand, and the darkness became dancing shadows. Draco looked around fiercely, and saw the two first-years who had followed him huddling against the wall, trembling madly, but unhurt.

The girl who had been walking beside him and talking to him about Harry and his own reputation was gone.

Draco knelt to look at the floor, though he already knew what he would find. No trace of blood, no dent in the stones, and only the lingering taste of cold and powerful magic in the air to claim that anyone but a wizard or witch had ever been there.

The other two children's eyes were so wide they looked set to fall out of their heads. Draco took a deep breath, and rose to his feet, and did what he had to do.

"To the hospital wing," he said quietly. Madam Pomfrey had dosed the girls who shared the Hufflepuff's room with Calming Draughts. These two would need it, too, when the shock wore off.

Luckily, it hadn't worn off yet, and they began to walk without complaint. Draco swept the corridor with his eyes again.

For one moment, he froze, thinking that he saw the outline of a manticore against the stones, but then he realized it was only a shadow. He shook his head and hastened after the first-years. His hand shook when he tried to hold up his wand, and he decided that he might need some Calming Draught himself.

SSSSSSS

Peter stood in front of his NEWT Defense Against the Dark Arts class, and narrowed his eyes when he noticed how many of them were talking among themselves rather than facing the front. "_Attention_," he said sharply.

They paid attention at once. Draco Malfoy was the palest of them, but understandably so, Peter thought; he'd seen the latest first-year, a Slytherin, vanish right in front of him. Harry leaned forward beside him, one hand firmly on his boyfriend's back. Peter nodded. So long as they didn't engage in more of a display than that in his class, he could hardly reprimand them. Draco had needed the comfort, and Peter had actually been surprised that he was returning to classes so soon.

"The Headmistress has directed all the older students who can to learn spells of fire and light," he said. "And I promise you, I have some spells that you can learn even if you're Declared Dark." He let his eyes linger pointedly on Draco for a moment, and then on the one sixth-year Ravenclaw who had likewise Declared. "Fire and radiance respond better to a Light wizard's will, but there is a kind of light that has long been associated with darkness and eerie happenings."

He lifted his wand and cried, "_Lux errabunda!_"

His wand began to glow. Peter had to concentrate to force the spell out—it tended to resist him, since he was Light and not Dark—but in the end he made it work. He heard his students gasp in wonder as the air around him swirled with a thin line of poison-green radiance, almost the color of the Slytherin crest.

"This is the Wandering Fire," said Peter, "the cousin of the lights that dance on ships and which the Muggles call St. Elmo's Fire." He smiled as the green light curled away and lined Draco's chair and the chair of the Ravenclaw with insistent brilliance. "It can shine in the midst of smoke and storm, and it never goes out until the caster wills it so. There's some hope that it might stay lit even in the middle of the wild Dark. _Finite Incantatem_," he added, when the fire began to curl up, like a purring cat, on the laps of the two Dark wizards. "And now, for the most powerful spell of Light."

He turned to the middle of the room, and added over his shoulder, "Shield your eyes."

He closed his own, even though this spell could not blind its caster, falling into himself and drawing on the strength he would need. He made himself think of clear, glittering sunlight, the full weight and burden of a July day, not the semi-constant gray light they had right now.

Then he cried, "_Lucescit!_" _Day is breaking._

This was one of the few light spells not diminished and disempowered as the world turned away from Midsummer and towards Midwinter, because it drew on the memories and Light magic of the wielder, rather than the closeness of the sun. Peter felt light stab him through his eyelids, and heard several of his students cry out in wonder, and knew he had successfully cast the spell.

He opened his eyes and smiled at the light that spread throughout the room, not sourced in a glittering ball or a wand, as so many Light spells were, but coming from everywhere and nowhere. Where did a memory come from? This light came from the same place.

He told his students when they could open their eyes, and he was heartened to see hope on some faces where it had faded before, and that even Draco Malfoy had his head tilted back, hand clasped tightly in Harry's, as if it were the light and not the darkness that would guide him through the days ahead.

_We will last through them, _Peter thought. _We have to._

SSSSSSSSS

Harry pictured himself drifting in darkness. He held onto the vision even as he sank into sleep, and dived further and further into himself, until he was once again walking—though this time in dreams—through the landscape in which he'd arrived to defeat Tom Riddle.

He saw the fence ahead, and the black pool, and shivered convulsively. But this was his best chance of figuring out the wild Dark's intentions and defeating them if he could.

There had been no more disappearances since Amanda Bailey vanished, but there had been many times when torches had burned out and only light spells had kept people from dashing in multiple directions. The demands to close the school were coming more frequently from the Ministry now, though McGonagall had so far still staved them off, and several parents had removed their children from Hogwarts already.

What haunted Harry most was the expressions on the face of the refugees he passed. They had come to the school for safety, and now they were finding out that danger could follow them inside. Harry would spare them that, if he could, just as he would spare the students the slow-burning panic that was spreading through them.

He leaned on the fence and stared into the still water. A moment later, a pair of deep green eyes, many times larger than his head, opened and looked back at him.

Harry knew he would not be able to enter Voldemort's mind and learn his plans undetected as he was. He was too Light, and he would stand out on the darkscape that was Voldemort's thoughts like a firefly in a blackened room.

He extended a hand downward. The water slurped, and a hand rose from it, stretching forward to meet his.

But he had come to the darkness in his own mind for several nights now, and what he had suspected was true. He could access the connection between him and Voldemort that way, too. Dive deep enough, coat himself with enough darkness and enough dominating will, and he could swim across the boundaries in such a way that Voldemort would be extremely unlikely to sense him, because Harry would feel like a part of his own mind.

The hand clasped his. Harry shuddered as an echo seemed to travel through him and into the creature in the pool.

It was risky. He would move slowly. He would have to understand more of hatred and loathing and madness than he now did, and share Voldemort's thoughts for a longer period of time than he ever had, performing this Legilimency even when awake. He would probably drift for a while before he learned anything useful, because he wouldn't dare rise to the surface of the Dark Lord's mind until he was sure Voldemort wouldn't notice him.

He swung his legs over the fence and slid towards the dark water.

But they had that time, if Harry's estimation was correct. The wild Dark's next time of greatest power was Midwinter. Whatever strike Voldemort had arranged with it—or it had arranged for itself—was likely to come then, not on Halloween or at any point in between. Halloween was a special day for wizards, but it had never been a day when the wild Dark showed any especial power.

He felt the water creeping towards his face, and he closed his eyes in sheer reflex.

They had no other way of learning what Voldemort's plans were likely to be, no spy in his camp or any possibility of gaining one. If Harry could learn anything from this, even a scrap of information, it would be valuable. The people around him could, as Draco had informed him, tell if he started acting differently and abusing his magic; Snape would pull him out of the bond if that occurred. And—Harry knew this was the true reason Snape had agreed to this—it would give him practice with his Legilimency and a way to know the darkness within him.

Harry let the creature pull him towards the bottom of the pool, and set himself to learn what the darkness was like.

After all, it _was_ him.

SSSSSSSSSS

Step, and step, and step, and step, and the final rune was laid. The circle, made of blue-purple stones, each inscribed with the letter of a name as well as a rune, began to glow. Henrietta stood surveying it with quiet satisfaction.

She didn't stand within the circle, of course, but outside it. This was a summoning circle, meant to call on a certain person.

And even then, in this case, it wouldn't actually make that person appear in the circle; that took both more time and more magic than Henrietta had. It would simply attract the person's attention, nudge him to come closer, make him, possibly, betray himself and think it was his own conflicted impulses that led him.

Henrietta knelt and traced one finger over the first four runes, from stone to stone. E-V-A-N.

She _did_ intend to have some fun with this, before the end.


	50. Shackles of Silver

**Chapter Thirty-Eight: Shackles of Silver**

"And do you really mean that, Mr. Malfoy?" There was delight in Melinda Honeywhistle's voice, but mixed with it was terror. Lucius found it provocative. A pity that he needed this woman to spread the story that he'd decided on to bait out Hawthorn. He would have enjoyed baiting _her_ in and destroying her, if only to prove to himself that he still could.

"I do mean that, Mrs. Honeywhistle." He flicked at a spot of dust on his robes. He wore dark blue ones, the finest left to him, as he stood in front of the group of five reporters he'd summoned to the Ministry Atrium. No one had yet tried to stop them, perhaps because they weren't yelling, though they had received some suspicious glances from the Aurors on guard. "Working for Voldemort—" he watched in satisfaction as some of them flinched "—is not only the opposite of grand and glorious, but it is, in the end, ineffective. He had a strong hold on me compared to most other people. I was under the Imperius Curse when I first served him, after all, and that leaves traces in the mind." He watched as the reporters nodded wisely. That was not true, of course, but none of them knew much about the Unforgivables—not many people did—so Lucius had little fear that his lie would be found out. "And then there's the Dark Mark." He touched his left arm, and watched as their eyes followed his hand in wary fascination. "And I still managed to break free."

"It cost the death of your wife to do so, though, didn't it, Mr. Malfoy?" asked a fat, pompous man from one of the minor morning papers.

Lucius inclined his head. "It is true, and regrettable, that Narcissa died in the same battle where I freed myself, yes. However, that does not make the two things connected." He raised an eyebrow, and the reporter had the grace to flush. _Too bad that he does not have the grace to do much else. _"Voldemort cannot control the people he does have. The people who serve him do so out of fear." He paused a moment, and then let a sneer slide across his face. "Or hatred, as Hawthorn Parkinson does. She is a werewolf, and Voldemort has played on that mindless trait in her, encouraging her to surrender to her rage. She could, perhaps, have escaped like I did, but she has made no effort that I can see so far."

"Aren't you worried that she might hear about this and come to take revenge on you?" Honeywhistle asked, even as she scribbled madly on her scroll.

_I am hoping that she will_. "She will not dare," said Lucius. "Those who serve Voldemort serve out of fear, at the bottom, unless they manage to pull free like I did. She might dream of confronting me, but she will not actually do so."

They asked him a few more questions, but his point had been made. Lucius had carefully crafted his words so that they would chip at Voldemort's formidable reputation, and make joining the Death Eaters seem less the opportunity for Dark wizards than the refuge of the coward.

Most of all, he had baited the hook to make it irresistible for Voldemort to punish him by sending Hawthorn after him.

He did hope.

He moved casually out of the Ministry when the press conference was done, avoiding the Aurors who drifted just as casually after him. They quickened their pace to capture him in the alley outside the telephone box, but Lucius Apparated without looking behind him. Even if they could have traced his Apparition, they would have to be braver than they looked to follow him into Knockturn Alley.

He landed outside Seth's shop, startling a thin, ragged owl who flew up to the roof of the building and screeched at him. Lucius gave it a flat, unfriendly glance, and thought of hexing it. Then he reminded himself that he would need his magical strength for the next few days. Tonight was the first night of the full moon, and while Hawthorn might come hunting him, there were two other chances for it, too.

He entered the shop through a swirl of dead leaves and dust, and found the halfling holding a set of silver chains and a muzzle as if he'd been expecting him. He almost surely had, Lucius thought. He could see through shadows, and his mother could scout for him if someone used magic to baffle his senses. Lucius was not aware of any magic that could muffle the senses of _that_ hunter.

"They are ready, Mr. Malfoy," said Seth quietly. When he listened, Lucius could hear the slightest tinge of a hiss to his voice, but he had really adapted to speaking English remarkably well. "I almost wish I could keep them. They are beautiful, are they not?" He spun the chains, and sighed.

"I have brought the Galleons you requested," said Lucius simply, and laid the bag down on the counter. Seth eyed him with those frog-like eyes for a moment more, then nodded and floated the chains over to him.

Lucius caught and studied them. They appeared to be pure silver, at first: four shackles shaped to catch paws extending from a single spine chain, with a muzzle to curl around the teeth. It was only when he leaned close to them and sniffed that he caught a scent of blood and dying things, and saw the dark shimmer that coursed up and down the fetters. Seth had forged them of silver and hatred, the way that Lucius had requested.

"You shall have your payment, Master Smith." Lucius folded the chains up and floated them behind him, casting a Disillusionment Charm on them. He didn't dare shrink them, in case that affected their properties when it came time to capture Hawthorn. "The little halfling girl is Jacinth Yaxley, and her mother is Lazuli. And I have written a letter to her asking if she would put her daughter in communication with you. She has so agreed." He bowed and produced the letter from his pocket with a flourish.

Seth took it with trembling hands. Lucius watched him through narrowed eyes that he hoped concealed his contempt. Even if one _was_ sure that one was the only member of one's kind, and then found a second individual, that would be no excuse for trembling hands.

"It is real," Seth said, leaning close to the parchment and flaring his nostrils. Lucius supposed he was absorbing Jacinth's scent. Then he looked up and shook his head. "And now, you must leave."

Lucius was more than happy to do so, especially since the shadows were stirring at his heels. The chains floated behind him. He had accomplished, with all luck, two steps of his task: luring Hawthorn to him, and finding a means to hold and capture her when she did come.

But the third, talking her back and out of her hatred, did not lie within his power. He would have to speak to Harry.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

"Lucius."

Lucius had to admire the balance in the boy's voice, between wariness and outright aggression. It was admirable. And so was the way he rose to his feet like a dancer, long before Lucius got too close, and yet managed to make the gesture look like something other than one of respect.

His eyes were a deeper green than Lucius remembered them being, but he had heard rumors that Harry was exploring Dark Arts and did not find that surprising. Unusually powerful magic sometimes marked its new practitioners like that, for a time. He held himself with his magic snapping around him like a banner, somewhere between threatening and a mere reminder of what he could do. He was treating Lucius more like an enemy prisoner, even now, than a returned ally.

Lucius could not have expressed in words how much he appreciated that.

"_Vates_," he said, with a deep bow, and saw a spasm of confusion cross Harry's face. He must have expected the same haughtiness and pride as always. Lucius shook his head as he sat down on one side of the small table in a low chair, the only furniture provided in this designated meeting room. Harry had earned the title, never mind how miserable he had made Lucius's life in doing so.

"I have a means to fulfill one of my bargains, and bring Hawthorn Parkinson back," he said, and then dropped the Disillusionment Charm on the chains. He knew Harry would have sensed the magic already, but he wouldn't have had the chance to examine them yet and see their nature.

Harry came slowly forward, his eyes narrowed and his nostrils working as he evidently caught some trace of the hatred. Lucius nodded. He still missed the pureblood grace and posture that would have been trained into Draco's perfect partner, but there was something appealing about the primal way that Harry approached and assessed threats. He was not a creature of perfect breeding, but he was a creature of perfect magic. Lucius could appreciate the compromise.

"What are they _made_ of?" Harry asked suddenly, breaking him from his contemplation.

"Both silver and hatred," Lucius said, and smiled when Harry turned to stare at him. "Yes, there are people who can do such things, though one must know where to find them. In this case, a smith in Knockturn Alley." He paused, then added softly, "Someone who is half human and half nameless, headless snake, rather like your friend Jacinth."

Harry stiffened.

"I have already put him in communication with Jacinth, with her mother's permission, of course." Lucius watched closely, and saw the flicker of surprise Harry couldn't hide. "I am not as committed to being the bastard as the man you once knew," he said. "I told you that I had learned much of slavery, Harry. That is still true. Freely chosen service is superior to slavery in every way, where I once would have thought of them as equal and disdained service of any kind."

"Then you did mean what you said to Draco?" Harry asked. "That you live at our sufferance?"

"I had to mean it, or the oath would not have taken, and the Dark would have told Draco I was lying," said Lucius mildly. He watched Harry reassess him with a small smile. Of course, the more Harry believed that, and the more Draco did, the more freedom they would allow him, and the more he could do. He did not intend to betray either of them; the oath he had made would not allow that. But he did intend to have some room for leisure, and for traveling back and forth, that they would not allow if they still distrusted him.

Harry sat down on the other side of the table again, and asked, "So how do you plan to retain her? Even if the chains can hold a werewolf, there is still the problem of making her come to you."

"I have just given a rather insulting interview to several papers that I expect Voldemort to see and take offense at," Lucius said. "In it, I insulted Hawthorn. He controls her hatred by letting her sate her lust for vengeance sometimes; he must, or he would lose control of her to the werewolf savagery. He let her torture the Aurors in the raid on Tullianum. I believe that he will send her after me, since he knows that I am of no more earthly use to him as a servant, and I have dared to discourage others from joining him."

"And tonight is the full moon," Harry said.

Lucius leaned forward. "Yes. I am planning to arrange these chains around a certain doorway in the Manor, which I will stand behind. She will scent my blood and come for me, and the chains will take her. However, while I can hold her until morning, that does not mean that I can talk her out of her hatred. That is where you come in, Harry. I need you to come in and do as a _vates_ would, talking her free—either while she is still a werewolf, or when she returns to her right mind and shape as a woman. Werewolves cannot Apparate, but she has no reason not to go back to Voldemort the moment the moon sets."

"And why should I help you keep your promise, Lucius?" Harry leaned forward in turn. The dark shade in his eyes had deepened. "You are the one who made the promise, and you are the one who said you would keep it. That means that I should not have to help you. And I am still, if one looks at it in a certain light, owed either your life or your magic, given your violation of the Alliance oaths before you returned to Voldemort."

Lucius nodded. This was the dangerous moment. But he had survived more dangerous things. At least he knew that Harry had a fundamental compassion and an addiction to hearing his enemies' side of the story that Voldemort did not. He leaned back and fixed him with a serious gaze.

"You have forgiven my crimes once, Harry," he said quietly. "You know what I did during the First War, and unlike others, you do not have a reason to believe that I was under the Imperius Curse when I did it. You were telling my son that as early as your first year at Hogwarts." He watched in interest as Harry's hand tightened on the edge of the table, but until Harry actually splintered it and struck at him, he refused to be concerned. "You managed to forgive me for killing the relatives of people you knew, for murdering and torturing children young enough to be your siblings."

"Are you tempting me to rescind that forgiveness, Lucius?" Harry snarled.

"I am asking you to extend it." Lucius cocked his head. "I am doing what I can to atone for my crimes. I will atone in other ways if you ask it." And he would. No matter what the end, his family's future was bound up with Harry now. He had to stay on his good side and do as he said—some of the time—in order to _have_ a future. Lucius did not always like it, but he could recognize reality when it stared him in the face. Ignoring that reality, as he had for most of the last year, had been his cardinal sin. "My life is the price if you ask it. I ask that it not be. I cannot help you, and I cannot help others, if I am dead. Likewise with my magic. I am very little use to you as a Squib. Will you forgive me again, Harry? Will you admit that I made a mistake in judgment, but that does not mean that you need to execute me?"

Harry's hand tightened once more on the edge of the table, and his eyes looked like jade now. Lucius still remained relaxed. He knew the _true_ danger signs with Harry, and they had not reached them yet. His head did not hurt from the explosion of magic being held back, for one thing.

"I should kill you," Harry said in a low voice. "Merlin knows you have done things that deserve it."

Lucius sat silent.

"And you don't regret any of them, either," said Harry, his voice rising in frustration. "At _all_."

"I regret driving my son and my wife away." Lucius leaned forward. "I regret what I did under Voldemort's influence. I regret not recognizing right away where the best chances for me lay. Most of this past year will live as the Year of Regret in my memory."

"But not what you did in the First War."

Lucius gave a graceful shrug, and tilted his head so that he regarded Harry from behind one strand of blond hair. "If you wanted that, Harry, you should have asked Hawthorn Parkinson to be sitting here, and me to be running on four legs as a werewolf in Voldemort's service. I will never do it again. But I refuse to live my life in the shadow of guilt that I did not feel at the time."

Harry stared at him in frustration. Lucius remained still. He was what he was. He could not offer less than that to Harry's cause, or his son's. What he _would_ have was knowledge, now, of whether Harry honestly intended to strip him of his magic or his life. He did not think Harry would leave him in suspense for long.

"Damn you," Harry muttered, looking away.

"Well?" Lucius asked.

"I am going to come and talk to Hawthorn." Harry rose to his feet and shot him an impressive, green-eyed glare, with _power_ behind it, power Lucius could appreciate. "For her sake, though, I'll have you know. Not yours."

"I would not have it any other way," said Lucius. "I know that I hold but a feeble purchase in your heart, as the father of Draco and the husband of Narcissa." _For now_. He had the chance to change that, too, to prove to Harry that he could be valuable even when all his promises were fulfilled. He had to, or make Harry think of taking his life and magic again someday, when someone pressed him and pointed out that Lucius was not contributing to the future Harry wanted to build.

Harry drew a deep breath, then let it go and shook his head. "I can't deal with you right now, Lucius," he said. "Go. Contact me when you've captured Hawthorn. I'll meet you at the Manor."

Lucius concealed a smile as he departed. If his life were seriously in danger from Hawthorn's teeth and claws, he suspected he could call on Harry earlier than the capture, and he would answer.

But it was just as well not to test that. He would let Harry have as long as he needed to think he hated Lucius, and believe that he was evil and no good for anything but keeping his promises. Eventually, he would flail those last leftover emotions out, and it would be time to build a new relationship.

_That is a good thing about his focus on the future. One nearly always gets a second chance._

SSSSSSS

Lucius knew he had been right when he heard the howl splintering the air from the Manor's far side.

He checked the doorway around which the chains hung one more time, and nodded. The hatred woven into the silver was necessary to contain Hawthorn, since she was not a free-running wild werewolf; then silver alone could have held her. This would replicate the hold of the loathing that Voldemort had on her, and make her remain for at least the night.

Draco had had to lower the wards so that Hawthorn could cross into the Malfoy property without being stopped. He had taken the chance to remind his father of just how much he was in control, and how much Lucius had to depend on him for something that once would have taken him a moment to accomplish.

Lucius had looked appropriately humble and chastised all during it. It was much easier to dance around his son than Harry. Draco had memories of him that Harry did not, and Lucius could play on that love and their shared grief for Narcissa to make his son give him concessions when Draco thought he was exerting his own will solely.

_Narcissa._

Lucius shook the thought of his dead wife away. She would have scorned him for being so soppy as to weep while he was waiting for an enemy.

And now he could hear that enemy hurling herself against the door of the Manor, which swung open before her. Lucius concentrated, and heard the skittering slide of claws on rich parquet. He winced. He would have to look into having that replaced—and convince Draco it was an important expense—after this.

He could feel her coming closer, partially because he could hear her growls and smell the musky scent of wolf, and partially because of the instinct that seemed to come to all prey when it was being hunted. Lucius heard her give a deep, throaty snarl of satisfaction when she arrived at the far door of his study. The woman in her recognized him as an enemy, and the werewolf was more than happy to use that as an excuse for killing, though it would have struck at anyone in its path.

A claw reached out, snagged in the middle of the door, and then wrenched backward, tugging the wood with it. Lucius winced again. That had been an expensive door.

And then Hawthorn—or the pale fawn bitch with amber eyes who would, in a few hours' time, transform back to Hawthorn—stood in the doorway, staring across the width of his study at what was apparently her prey waiting for her, defenseless, behind yet another open doorway.

Her mouth opened in a delirious howl of triumph.

Lucius looked down that shining gullet, lined with teeth, and let some of his fear drift onto his face. But he did not try to run. There was always the chance that Hawthorn would track a parallel course to him if he did that, and smash through walls instead of the doorway trap. He would not risk it, though it took all his control to stand still as she began her charge.

She leaped the desk in the middle of the study, and Lucius watched the graceful play and flex of her muscles, and thought of the old childhood tales of werewolves that his nurse had whispered to him when he was a child, to keep him inside the Manor on full moon nights. They were all the more effective for being true.

He did not know where he found the courage to keep standing there. Or, rather, he had not known until that moment that his will to survive socially and create an important position for himself in the future was as strong as his will to simply _survive._

Hawthorn landed on the opposite side of the desk. Lucius watched carpet mound around her claws, immense, shining black nails, each one of which could inflict lycanthropy. He would have to make sure to move out of range the moment she was taken, so that her lashing paws could not infect him. Infection was _not_ part of the plan.

She lunged.

Lucius commanded the chains to move.

They whirled out of the sides of the doorway and came down precisely where they needed to, the silver bonds finding and curling about her paws, the straight chain lashing down the middle of her spine, the muzzle closing around her wildly snapping jaws. Hawthorn screamed in pain as the silver burned through her fur, and then began fighting. Lucius heard the chains creaking. He wondered if she would manage to fracture a link. Fracture one, and all of them would unravel, since the magic and metal held every single one in tension.

But then she flipped over on her back, not a position that she would have taken on her own, and the chains bound her paws together over her belly. And her snarls subsided to whimpers as the muzzle clamped down and forced her teeth together. Lucius found him the target of maddened amber eyes, but no other strike.

He touched his left wrist, without taking his eyes off Hawthorn, and invoked the phoenix song communication spell to whisper, "She has been captured, Harry."

Harry arrived at once. When Draco restored the wards around Malfoy Manor to be what they had been—other than the fact that they were under his command and not his father's, of course—he had restored Harry's connection to them as well, which Lucius had given him as a gift at the climax of their truce-dance. Harry melted through the wards, and Lucius heard him hunting for only a moment before he came through the splintered doorway, crossed the study, and then crouched down beside the bound Hawthorn from the other side.

And he began to speak.

Lucius raised an eyebrow. He had thought Harry would wait until dawn; speaking to a crazed werewolf and trying to bring it back from its hatred was impossible. But if he wanted to try it now, and hope, perhaps, that her unconscious, the sleeping woman, would hear him and rejoice, Lucius was not about to hinder him. He conjured a chair not far away and sat down to watch.

"I know that you can hear me, Hawthorn," Harry whispered, his voice deep and intent. "And I know that you remember the talk we had before you fell victim to Voldemort again, the one that reminded you of the future. You suffered the loss of your husband, your daughter, your humanity—if you count the nights you've run without Wolfsbane—your dignity when the Aurors took you, and your freedom."

Lucius rolled his eyes. _Oh, yes, excellent tactic, Harry, remind her of all she's lost when you want to encourage her to come back._

"But that _doesn't matter._"

Lucius blinked. He had never heard Harry sound so savage.

"It doesn't matter what you've lost." Harry reached out and let his hand hover over Hawthorn's bound paws, though Lucius could not see why. "It _doesn't matter._ Dragonsbane and Pansy are dead, Hawthorn, and you're alive. Your freedom can be restored to you. You've recouped your lost dignity with more than enough violence to answer for it. And your humanity can be retained mentally, if not physically, when you take the Wolfsbane Potion. You can live. You can deal with things. You have _no excuse_ to give in to hatred like this, to fall victim to vengeance when we talked about rescuing you from it. Lucius, Indigena, the Aurors—they're worthless next to your pride, your soul, the choices you make."

_I like that!_ Lucius shifted, and wondered if he should leave and just let Harry speak to Hawthorn in private. But considering the way that he was almost touching her now, the boy might let the werewolf loose to wreak havoc on his home. Lucius would prefer that not happen. He sat still, in the end.

"You are _you_." Harry leaned over the muzzled werewolf's face and breathed directly into her nostrils. He either didn't notice or didn't care about the aborted lunge that she made towards him, still taking, his voice a low, constant stream of encouragement. "You are more than capable of walking your own road and making capable, intelligent, adult decisions. If I thought you weren't, I would have insisted that you move into Hogwarts where I could watch you and lecture you about the importance of abandoning revenge. You chose to follow me. You know what ideals I espouse.

"No, what happened to you wasn't fair. It wasn't right." And then he _did_ touch her, running his hand along Hawthorn's pale shoulder until he almost reached the spine chain. Lucius tensed. _Idiot. It is lucky that the chains will not release just because a human touches them._

"But that _doesn't matter._ It has to be overcome. It shouldn't be lingered on and chewed over and over again until most of creation has forgotten what the original insult is. You should have been able to come to me and talk about the rage, the hatred. You're still alive, and I know that you aren't going to kill yourself, or you would have done it already. You're still alive, and that means making decisions. You can't give up and sit back and hope that nothing else happens to make you live." Harry flashed a smile so bitter that Lucius stifled the urge to sit up and applaud. "Believe me, I know that intimately.

"You have to come back. In the end, there's no choice to be made on the road you're walking. There is a choice to be made on the road that opens up into freedom. Many of your decisions will be painful, but I have faith that you can make them. Why?

"Because you're a fighter, Hawthorn. You've had to survive more in the past few years than anyone else I've known, and still you never gave up." Harry leaned close to her, eye to eye. Lucius stared. Amber eyes met green, and held, and Harry never blinked, and the werewolf made no sound. "And this is a form of giving up, if you kill whoever Voldemort tells you to _just_ because he tells you to."

The werewolf lay perfectly still. Lucius shook his head slightly, frowning. He knew that couldn't happen. Werewolves without Wolfsbane were savage, primal, elemental creatures, inspired by bloodlust. They weren't supposed to listen and seem to consider what a human said.

Of course, most werewolves didn't confront a _vates_, either. Lucius supposed that could have something to do with this.

Harry gazed into Hawthorn's eyes for long moments, his hands smoothing the fur on either side of her muzzle.

And then he drew a deep breath and started the whole thing over again.

SSSSSSSSS

Lucius was waiting for the moment when the moon set, and Hawthorn began to change in form. For one thing, he would never have allowed himself to fall asleep like this, with a dangerous beast in front of him. For another, he knew this was the moment the chains, made for holding a wolf, would slip off a woman, and she would probably turn to fire a Killing Curse at him before she Apparated back to Voldemort's side.

Harry's voice had long since failed from repeating variations of the same words over and over again. Now he sat beside the chains, not flinching and not looking away as the werewolf's body twisted and bent, the long legs shrinking, the paws clenching into hands and feet in a whirlwind of fur and claws, the tail retreating into the body, the muzzle retracting into the face. Even through the muzzle, the werewolf began a moan that quickly turned into a scream.

And then the chains fell limp and too big, gleaming shackles more tangled around than restrained Hawthorn Parkinson, whose blonde hair was flyaway, whose hazel eyes were still, to Lucius's gaze, full of madness, whose clothes were ragged.

Harry knelt beside her and met her gaze head on. Lucius could not have described what passed between them in that moment, not least because he was sitting at an angle and so could not see Hawthorn's face well.

"Do you remember what I said?" Harry asked. Or, at least, Lucius thought he did. He was only reading Harry's lips; there was no sound left behind them to power his voice.

Then Hawthorn began to cry.

And Harry leaned forward and gathered her in his arms, bowing his head over her neck. Before he did, and shut his eyes, Lucius saw a look of such triumph in them as made him suddenly sure Voldemort was as good as dead.

He had to look away, then, just for a moment, as the sound of the soft sobs replaced the growls of hatred. At his command, the chains fell limp.


	51. Intermission: The World Does Not End

**Intermission: The World Does Not End**

Pamela Seaborn lifted her gaze from the intense contemplation of a redwood's root system, and stared across the distance. Since her eyes were still looking beyond the surface of things, her line of sight did not stop at the sealine, but swung out beyond that, into misty realms where she had alarms set up to warn her if a Dark Lord or Lady was moving towards the United States.

One was, she saw a moment later, but only incidentally. Monika traveled out from Austria, but her destination was the island in the middle of the Atlantic where the International Confederation of Warlocks would hold a meeting to discuss Britain's problem in keeping the Statute of Secrecy. Monika was traveling there as an apparent "servant" in the train of Evamaria Gansweider, the Austrian Minister of Magic. She did not intend to intrude on Pamela's territory.

_Almost certainly, she intends to make some mischief, _Pamela thought. In her experience, most Dark Ladies did, and Monika was the worst of the lot.

It didn't take her long to decide what to do. She had no immediate crises that required her attention, and it might be good to know what Monika was planning. She dimmed the range of her longsight and then stood, stretching her arms above her head. The redwood she'd been sitting under swayed very slightly in response to the gesture. Pamela smiled sadly. She knew it was only a fraction of the communication she could have from it if the webs on the great trees were undone.

"Bear me, old friend?" she murmured, and then began to climb.

When she was safe in the topmost branches of the redwood, two hundred feet above the ground, she leaned back and drew her magic around her, concentrating it just above her shoulder blades and just under the balls of her feet. The magic under her feet tightened and shivered, coalesced, then dissipated into the branches of the redwood. The tree began to whipsaw as if in a high wind. Pamela opened her eyes wide.

The tree flung her forward, a far greater distance than it should have been able to; her magic had pierced into the paths of Light, and given the redwood a portion of its power. Pamela flew away, out across the ocean, and when the moment came that her momentum couldn't sustain her and she started to fall, she pulled the magic on her shoulder blades into motion.

Some struck through her bones, hollowing and lightening them. The rest surged out of her back as the wings of a California condor. Pamela had done what she could to save the great birds, though she did not know if her effort would be enough, and in return had taken part of their natural magic into herself, to shelter it if their kind perished. The wings flapped now, and bore her steadily over the Pacific in the direction of the island. Pamela was confident that she would make it on time. The Confederation never did anything important swiftly. There would be greetings, festivals, a welcoming feast, and squabbles for precedence first.

"Pamela."

She turned her head, and nodded a bit. "Alexandre." The Dark Lord was one of the few powerful Dark wizards she found tolerable. Currently, he traveled ensconced in what seemed to be a heat shimmer, though Pamela could feel her thoughts growing firmer and more certain as it came nearer. Alexandre studied creatures of magic that were half-alive, like prophecies, and this was evidently a prophecy he'd bent to serve him, one that would never come true or only come true far in the future.

"You're here because of Monika?" he asked.

Pamela shrugged, and then worked her wings hard to catch a warm current. Her distrust of the Austrian Lady was well-known among the Pact. Besides, she avoided lying when possible. Lying _could_ be a tool of the Light, properly employed, but Pamela tended to forget what she'd lied about and trip over it. "I'm interested in her interest in the Confederation, especially since they're dealing with the matter of Britain. And why are you here?"

She asked it as a joke; Alexandre would no more reveal his real motive than he would change his allegiance. Thus, she was startled when his haughty face bent into something like a true smile.

"Perhaps I am here for the same reason."

Pamela rolled her eyes. "You and Monika get on, Alexandre." Not well, of course—Monika got on well with no one, by the vice of her being so prickly and difficult—but he would not take sides against her.

"Perhaps not for much longer," said Alexandre, and, despite the conditional in the statement, Pamela was intrigued. She cocked her head as they soared over an island where a building Lord-level power shimmered. There was a girl who would be a Lady someday, Pamela thought absently, if she reached adulthood without being killed. Most wizards and witches around a powerful one were aware of what that magic meant before the child was, and would watch closely, ready to descend and exterminate the child if he or she turned to the Dark. Light Lords and Ladies caused problems, too, of course—one of Pamela's inherent problems was trying to make sure she didn't change the structure of her country _too_ much—but those of the Dark caused far more sheer destruction. It was a rare one, like Alexandre or Monika, who came to full power and Declared before someone else could locate them, evaluate them, and kill them.

Alexandre went on speaking then, drawing Pamela's attention to him. "Monika has—dangerous ambitions. I might not oppose them if they were confined to her own country, but they will not be."

Pamela blinked. Even knowing this was probably a lie, it was astonishing news. "Monika has always abided by the laws of the Pact." It had been an edge-of-the-teeth, skirting obedience more than once, when Monika almost shattered a protective law that was in place for an excellent reason, but Pamela had never known a true exception. What Alexandre was suggesting would be a departure from her pattern.

"Because she knows what is best for her, and has not the power to oppose us." Alexandre rolled comfortably to the side, supported by the yellow waves of prophecy-air he rode, and stared seriously at her. "Supposing she did? Supposing that she'd gathered such immense magic that she could face and kill any three members of the Pact?"

Pamela bit her lip and was silent. She knew how powerful the Dark Lord calling himself Voldemort had grown, of course, but she did not know how Monika could hope to have that power for herself. She was not an _absorbere._

"Just supposing," Alexandre continued, his voice calm and casual, "that the wizard who was heir to that magic was weak—in Monika's eyes—and capable of being killed once he'd taken it? And now imagine that the person taking it from him was a witch who has studied all the varieties of reproductive magic until she breeds new creatures in her sleep. And imagine that she could create a way to change her body so as to take in some of that magic."

It would be possible, Pamela knew. Monika's specialty certainly argued for it. But she had not even thought of it, and so most members of the Pact would not have.

"She has spoken to you about this?" she asked quietly. _Remember, his answer is likely to be a lie._

"One need not speak with someone else to notice a pattern of behavior." Alexandre inclined his head to her. "I know that you care for your redwoods and your condors, and that is nothing we have ever sat down and had a serious philosophical discussion about."

Pamela rolled her eyes. Trust Alexandre to compare the secret machinations of a Dark Lady with the open, well-known public devotions of a Light Lady. "You don't have to tell me if you don't wish to, Alexandre. I've hardly asked where your Horcrux is and how to destroy it."

Her only answer was a faint smile. It was a persistent rumor in the Pact that Alexandre had a Horcrux, but it hadn't ever been proven.

"And I can tell you if I wish," Alexandre said. "Say, if, for instance, and this is only conditional, I was interested in a coalition to stop a witch so suicidal, and restore the balance of power after the most powerful Lord in the world dies."

"And will he die?" Pamela asked.

Alexandre laughed and touched the air around him, petting the prophecy that bore him. "There are so many prophecies around Britain right now that the answer is uncertain. I wish you could see them, Seaborn. The country is _alive_ with them as no place has ever been. It—"

Pamela cut him off quickly. Get Alexandre onto a tangent he felt inclined to talk about, and on and on he would go. "But you think it likely?"

"Monika does."

Pamela supposed that was the best answer she would get. "And if someone was interested in forming such a coalition to subdue Monika's impetuous plans, what would be the right answer to give you?"

"Willingness to talk about it would be essential."

"Then by, all means, Prophetic Lord, let us talk," said Pamela, doubly glad now that she'd decided to attend the International Confederation. She might see what Monika was up to, but more than that, she'd found a possible ally. And she would rather look to the further future than the immediate future.

_Stories end, crises end, but the world does not. And in the cause of keeping it safe from Monika, I am willing to endure far worse things than Alexandre._


	52. The House of Yaxley

**Chapter Thirty-Nine: The House of Yaxley**

Indigena shook her head hard, and then sighed. She had never thought she would mind being underground—she had spent large portions of her time there for more than a year, since she reawakened last September, and before that she'd been buried and regenerating among her plants—but now she did. The constantly falling dirt, the heat of magic as her Lord bred his basilisks, the stifling clash of too many people too close together, made even the tendrils in her body yearn for the air and sunlight.

Besides, she had another task, which she couldn't carry out as close to many of the Death Eaters as being in the burrow required that she be.

She walked towards her garden, her eyes lowered, on the ground in front of her and not the slight rise of hills where she might reasonably expect him to appear. The bush that had grown the narcissus flower waved wildly at the sight of her, and Indigena knelt down with a smile, splaying her hand lightly above it. She wondered what it would grow if left to its own devices, with only her presence to inspire it.

She never knew, because just then the person she'd been waiting for arrived. She saw a gleam of gold from the corner of her eye, and managed to convince herself not to stiffen.

"Must you bring that thing with you?" she asked Evan, standing and turning around. "The Dark Lord might sense it, you know."

Evan smiled at her, his dark eyes gleaming like blueberries. The madness in them had not diminished, but whereas before it had advanced in a way that impeded Evan's actions, Indigena thought this time he had control of it. Being away from Voldemort might have done that for him, she thought, and felt a brief longing to experience the same thing.

Then she shook it off, when Evan tired of holding up the Hufflepuff cup and made it vanish among his robes again, saying, "And you are worried about the Dark Lord sensing it? I thought you intended to lure me close and trap me for him."

Indigena eyed him. "And you came _anyway_?"

"Of course," said Evan. "You are interesting. There is only one more interesting person in the world, and he fails to pay me the attention I need. You are _talking_ to me."

Indigena decided not to question that. Even if Evan would tell her who the person was, without playing his riddle-games, it was not as though the answer _mattered_ to her. "Well, that's not the case." At her casual gesture, the vines growing on the edges of the garden began to rise, wrapping them in a many-holed green cocoon. Evan looked at them but made no move to run, as Indigena had thought he probably would not. If she had grown the vines correctly, Indigena knew, they should bind any magic that tried to hear them here, including eavesdropping spells; they were a variant of the vines that bound wandless magic. "As I said in my note, I want your help to destroy Sylvan and Oaken Yaxley."

"You must make it more interesting than that," said Evan. "I do not _help_ people, you should know that. I play with them."

Indigena shrugged. "I was only speaking from my mind, and not yours." Evan nodded as if that satisfied him. "Besides, I could do it on my own if I wished." Indigena was confident of that. There was power in the earth that Sylvan and Oaken not only didn't know about, but disdained. Given time, she could grow a plant that would separate the twins and make them vulnerable to attack. But they didn't have the time, not when her Lord spent more and more time walking Sylvan and Oaken around the pattern of pounded blood and flesh while he explained matters to them. Indigena was fairly sure that they had only until Midwinter, in fact. "But I wanted to see how you would conquer them. If your play would include leaving them alive, or not doing what I would call help, then I have no interest in it." She started to turn away.

"Wait."

_I think I am learning how to deal with him. _Indigena turned with an arched eyebrow. "Yes?"

"You should never take for granted my answers," said Evan. "They hide more profound truths than you can know."

_Riddle-talk. Not important. _"Does this mean that you intend to play with them and break them, then?"

"Yes." Evan's eyes were bright. "Twins are the most delightful toys, don't you agree? When I thought about it, I had a good laugh over the fact that you had me lure Connor Potter away from his brother. If you had let me play with him, I would have been content, but even what you allowed me to do was good sport." He cocked his head, and a faint smile touched his mouth. "Perhaps I can use Connor Potter again someday, if only as a way to annoy Harry. Nothing annoys us like our siblings."

_That will not happen, _Indigena thought, but thinking about why only led her into the tangled maze of her own allegiances again, following a man she was learning to despise and fighting a man she admired, so she abandoned it. "I can agree with that sentiment, at least," she said, thinking of Lazuli and Peridot. "But in this case, it is _these_ twins you should concentrate on playing with."

"Interest me," said Evan. "Interest me, and I am the most faithful game-player you will find. I once spent seven days at darts, because the darts were made out of thighbones."

Indigena nodded, not doubting the intent behind the statement, no matter what the literal truth of it might be. "I do not think that you can get inside their shields in time."

"What time?"

"Midwinter."

Evan laughed. "I _thought_ I had heard that wind blowing."

Indigena shrugged. That could mean any number of things, including the windstorm, the wildstorm, that had surged above them in the graveyard when Indigena bound him with her thorns. "What matters to me is whether you can really destroy them inside two months."

Evan gave a slow, contemplative nod. "I can. But now I must meditate on the method I shall use. Shhh." He held up a hand at her, as if she might be prompted to interrupt, and sank into what looked like actual meditation. Indigena used the silent moments to test the temperament of the garden through the soil.

While she waited, she heard an immense sound rising from below, both snarl and scream, and the Dark Mark on her arm burned. Indigena sighed. _That means that he has lost Hawthorn Parkinson for good, then, and his attempts to regain control over her are in vain. He will be angry, and Merlin knows what he will demand to appease his temper._

Evan, incredibly, didn't seem bothered by it. He lifted his head a moment later, and he was smiling. "Yes," he said. "I know. I _know_. But I am not to tell the knowing to anyone else. You must not question me." He nodded to Indigena. "The game will be in motion by Midwinter. You, and me, and the twins, and a fifth player."

Indigena narrowed her eyes. "Who?" she asked before she could stop herself.

Evan actually reached out and pinched her nose, then pulled his hand back. "That was for questioning me, when I told you not to," he said sternly. "Now be quiet, and go follow your Lord. He's calling for you. Perhaps he will demand that you play darts with him." He turned and walked calmly out of the garden, Apparating when he was a sufficient distance away.

Indigena shook her head and followed the burn of her Mark, pondering, all the while, the fact that she should certainly have searched him for the Hufflepuff cup and tried to take it away from him, if she was as loyal a Death Eater as she usually acted.

_But I did not act very loyal just then, did I?_

She walked back into the stifling heat of the burrow, and knelt before her master in the freezing cold of his anger. She thought he might torture her, or order her to torture someone else, and hurt her when she refused.

It seemed, however, that her Lord was simply interested in a victory to replace the loss he had just suffered and salve the wound. "Prepare Feldspar," he told her, his voice replete with hisses even when he spoke a word that had no sibilants. "Gather the reins into your hands, and test the level of trust he has gained. _They_ fall before _he_ does. Do you understand, Indigena?"

"I do, my lord," said Indigena, since she actually knew this plan, unlike the one which would happen at Midwinter and involve the wild Dark, the pattern of flesh and blood, the twins, and, undoubtedly, Harry.

She had just risen to her feet when a whir of wings startled her, and she lifted a thorn from her back to strike out at it. Then she realized it was only an owl, who landed on her shoulder and insistently held out a foot.

Indigena vaguely recognized the handwriting on the envelope, but it was not until she opened it and read the letter inside that she understood what it meant. Her lips tightened, and the tendrils under her skin rippled and jerked and wavered, which she knew always made her look strange to someone else.

"What is the matter?" her Lord demanded.

"Bad news from home, my Lord." Indigena crumpled the letter in her hand. "Another one of my cousins has joined Harry." _Damn Chalcedony_.

SSSSSSSSSSS

Harry had to admit he was curious as to why Lazuli had asked for a meeting. She had said that a cousin of hers wanted to join him, but she hadn't included any details about why in her letter, and she had not said why it had to be _now_. Frankly, Harry would have preferred to wait. Juggling classes, his constant venturing into Voldemort's mind, and preparations for the Halloween ritual as he was, he would have been better able to sustain the meeting in a week.

But it did have to be now, from the sound of it, so Harry had invited them both to Hogwarts and was now waiting for them in the Room of Requirement. Draco sat at the table in the center of the room, whistling under his breath and practicing hexes now and then. Harry studied his shadow, which stretched across the floor, and had to admit that it did look a bit longer. When they entered the Casting of Shadows ritual, the magic would be at full wax, but it showed itself in small signs before then.

Draco looked up and caught his eye, then grinned. "What time were they supposed to arrive?" he asked. "Do we have time for—"

A sharp rap on the door made him sit back, pouting. Harry stifled a laugh as he moved to answer it. Draco liked Harry's frantic busyness lately no more than he did, but at least he had different reasons for disliking it.

"On the ritual day, at least," he said gently, but saw Draco's eyes cloud over. Harry paused. "What's the matter?" He would have sworn that the Casting of Shadows didn't preclude them from having sex, but perhaps he had misread some detail in the ritual.

"_I'd_ like having sex then," said Draco, and folded his arms. "_You_ wouldn't."

Harry was about to ask what in the world he meant, but the knock on the door was repeated, sounding irritated this time. Making a mental note to ask Draco about it later, he opened it.

Lazuli stood there, her face pale and emotionless as usual. Beside her was someone shrouded in a cloak. Harry glanced at Lazuli, who said, "We were afraid that he would attract stares as we came through the school." She stepped through, with the figure following directly behind her, and Harry shut the door after them.

A vision of a deep green curve stopped him. He had to brace himself on the door for a moment, and took a deep breath. He was getting these glimpses of what Voldemort was thinking about more and more often, but he couldn't tell what they were, or why the Dark Lord would be so preoccupied with abstract images.

He turned around and saw that Lazuli had taken a seat at the table, but the other person had not. Instead, he said, in a voice that had an odd echo in it, "It is proper to meet you on my feet," and flung back the hood.

Harry blinked. The man facing him was as pale as the other Yaxleys Harry had met, but he didn't have their dark coloring in his hair. Instead, it was a pale blue-gray, and it hung into eyes that seemed the color of Draco's. Then the man turned his head to focus more fully on Harry, and small red spots of color flared in his gaze, like the flecks in bloodstone.

"Chalcedony Yaxley?" Harry asked. _He's well-named, at least._

The man nodded. "May we sit?" The echo in his voice repeated _sit_ a moment after he did.

"Of course." Harry sat down on the far side of the table, studying the man. Perhaps it wasn't so strange that Lazuli had asked for a meeting but given no details. Chalcedony had done powerful and very odd magic, to leave his eyes that color permanently. She might have been unable to explain what he had to offer to the war effort, and decided to bring him along and let him speak in his own words.

Chalcedony sat down carefully, and promptly began to tap his foot in a pattern of four beats, with one pause between them. He relaxed as he did it, and Harry wondered if it was a means of anchoring his mind, keeping it from drifting off.

That made Harry more curious, but also more concerned. Some kinds of magic _did_ eat their practitioners alive, demanding their attention even when that attention should be engaged elsewhere. Harry would not want an ally who might fall asleep in the middle of a battle or a crucial meeting.

"That is better." Chalcedony focused on Harry, never letting up on the foot-tapping. Harry could feel Draco's growing irritation from the side, and put a hand on his arm to calm him, though he didn't look away from Chalcedony, either. Eye contact might be important. "Now. I see patterns. And there is an immense pattern taking shape in the world right now. It is not good. It is a soul-pattern."

Harry blinked. "I'm sorry, but that makes no sense," he said, even as he thought of the curves and knots in Voldemort's mind. "I've never heard of a soul-pattern. Are you similar to a Seer? They see souls—"

"And I see soul-patterns," Chalcedony interrupted. "Souls are—they are _souls_. A soul-pattern is the _representation _of a soul. It is the difference between a bird and the painting of a bird." The beat of his foot altered, from four beats with one pause between to five beats and two pauses in between.

Harry nodded. "I can accept that. But whose soul-pattern is it? And how would you go about sculpting one? And what would you use it for?"

"It is yours," said Chalcedony. "This one is sculpted of rendered flesh and blood. And in this case, its main purpose is to get the wild Dark interested in your soul."

"That still tells us _nothing_," Draco observed, grinding his teeth as he leaned forward. "Who is doing this? And _will you please stop that tapping?"_

Harry frowned at Draco, even as Chalcedony said, "Voldemort is doing this. And I am sorry. I must have a pattern to anchor myself. Otherwise, the patterns I see everywhere and anywhere will absorb me and take my mind away. I have learned them, but they have learned me, too. They know I am here, and they ride me, and make me express them when I must." He shook his left sleeve back from his hand. Harry blinked at the sight of three fingers which looked like worn-down stubs. "They made me draw once until I made a pattern of my own bone and flesh and blood," Chalcedony said simply, and lowered his hand again. "There must be a pattern to ride, and better one I create than one I cannot control."

Draco sat back, appearing appropriately stunned. Harry said, "Could you tell us, please, why Voldemort is doing this? And how you sensed the pattern in the first place?" He still understood nothing of the context that Chalcedony was explaining, though it did explain some things that had been bothering him, such as the abstract shapes in Voldemort's mind and what he could possibly have done to anger the wild Dark. Perhaps he had done nothing at all. Perhaps, as Owen had suggested, it was something Voldemort had done.

"I will try," said Chalcedony. "I am sorry. I am not good at explaining—context. Too many statements about the same subject joined together make a pattern of their own, you see, and it tries to learn me." He closed his eyes for a moment, and then leaned forward, slapping his right hand on the table three times. Then he began to speak, without sitting up or looking at Harry again.

"Voldemort is doing this to interest the wild Dark," said Chalcedony. "Entice it, let it know your soul. A soul-pattern is fascinating. A full sight of it destroys the person whose soul it is. The wild Dark is learning it, and with the sight of the soul-pattern, it is learning to like you, want you, be fascinated, crave to take your soul and have you as a possession." He leaned forward to bang his head on the table several times, and then sighed, as if that banished a particular compelling pattern.

Harry shuddered, feeling his skin crawl. "But why doesn't Voldemort just lure me close enough to see the soul-pattern and destroy me that way?" he asked.

Lazuli picked up the tale, while Chalcedony switched the pattern of his foot-tapping yet again. "This part I understand," she said simply. "A soul-pattern annihilates the person who sees it completely, Harry. And he doesn't want that. At best, he wants your magic, if he cannot have your allegiance. And at worst, destroying you like that might destroy him, since the two of you are so connected."

"How did he get my soul-pattern?"

Lazuli shook her head and glanced at her cousin again. "Such a thing—can be learned—in the mind," Chalcedony said, clicking his teeth together between words. "Those who have used them in the _past_ to _destroy_ their enemies are mostly _Legilimens._" He grinned with triumph when that was out. Harry supposed the irregular stresses had worked to defeat a pattern in his mind.

"I don't suppose Harry can use this on Voldemort?" Draco's voice had soared with hope.

Harry saw the hope sour when Chalcedony shook his head. "It can only be used on someone with a _whole soul_. Voldemort's soul is not _whole_." He paused and groaned then, half-closing his eyes. Harry wondered if emphasizing two words at the ends of sentences had been too much for him. "I do not know _how_ to describe it," he continued, after a panting moment, "but it is _split_. He cannot be _de_stroyed that way."

Harry nodded grimly. He saw Lazuli's eyes narrow in suspicion, but he ignored that. He had not trusted everyone among his allies with the secret of the Horcruxes. The most many of them knew was that Voldemort had a number of objects which needed to be destroyed before they could destroy him. If Lazuli guessed the truth from this, however, Harry could hardly blame her.

"Will any sight of the soul-pattern destroy me?" he asked. "Even if I glimpsed it through the connection that he and I have?"

"Yes," Chalcedony gasped, and then abruptly leaned back in his seat and screamed. Lazuli turned to tend him without comment. Harry shook his head, but turned willingly when Draco grasped his shoulders and pulled him. He had expected something like this as soon as he heard the truth from Chalcedony.

"Stop looking into Voldemort's mind," Draco snarled. "_Now_. Before you have a full sight of it."

Harry held still for a moment, watching him. "Even though I'm also learning my own darkness, and that's preparing me better for the Casting of Shadows?" he asked. "Even though we still don't know what Voldemort really intends to do once he's got the wild Dark interested in my soul?"

"_Now_."

Harry nodded, and closed his eyes, drifting towards the connection that he'd started to open between his mind and Voldemort's. It was actually a simple matter to cut it. No matter how much he'd learned about the darkness, he still knew the light, the world above the tar-like surface of his mind, better. He jerked back, and the dark water bubbled and screamed and let him go.

It tried to follow him, of course, to occupy his attention and demand a claim on it, but Harry shut the door firmly, crossed back over the fence and stepped back from the darkness. The creature inside it snarled at him, then rolled over and dived down beneath the black oil to brood in silence.

When Harry was sure he could find no trace of the connection left, he opened his eyes and looked at Lazuli. Chalcedony had passed out, and she was helping him to his feet, wrapping him again in the dark cloak. Harry supposed the cloak had been not only to keep people from gaping at him, but to reduce the visual stimuli he received, which could transform into patterns.

"Is there anything that can be done for him?" he asked.

Lazuli shook her head. "No. He is dying. He traveled too far into the patterns, and they are eating him alive. He came to you because he sensed this pattern taking form, and believed it was too evil to be allowed to endure. But now that he has done his duty, I fear that is the limit of service he will be able to offer to our side." She wrapped a fold of the cloak around Chalcedony's face, and then brushed a golden button on the side of the hood. Harry saw it wink and glow, then dissolve the strange Yaxley into the bright colors of a Portkey. Lazuli turned and faced him. "_I_ may be able to do more," she said.

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Tell me."

SSSSSSSSSS

Indigena rolled her eyes as Feldspar vanished again. Honestly, she was not sure how he managed to fool Aurora Whitestag. He _must_ be more convincing than he appeared here when he was in the Ministry.

_Of course, he might behave better when he doesn't have you there, terrifying him out of his wits._

Indigena ignored the thought. She wasn't in the mood to think anything charitable about her family today.

And she was even less so when a chorus of scents filled her nostrils. Mingled rose and lily—that meant someone was trying to enter the garden at Thornhall, her private sanctuary, the home where her most precious plants grew.

And, not incidentally, the place where she had buried the wand that contained a shard of her Lord's soul, when she had retrieved it from the orphanage after assassinating Scrimgeour.

She vanished at once, Apparating without a word; if she had lingered to tell her Lord where she was going, she might miss a moment when the intruders managed to pierce her wards. It was evident that she would have to have stronger protections for the garden. She had counted on the reputation of the plants and lack of knowledge about the Horcruxes to keep intruders out.

She landed in front of the gate, her thorns already out and lashing on her back. The group in front of her paused. Indigena recognized the young Malfoy and the traitor Severus Snape near the back, but it was the two figures in front that her eyes focused on. One was Harry, of course. He knew about the Horcruxes, and he would have come on any hunt for them.

The other was Lazuli.

Indigena lifted her head and her thorns both higher. "Oh, yes, come against me," she said. "If you want to die, that is." She swayed the tendrils back and forth, and looked for the best target. Snape would be easiest to reach, standing as he did in a gap between others, but she knew she should strike and kill the young Malfoy if she could. Tear out his heart, and Harry's heart would rupture with it.

Thoughts tried to intrude again, assaulting her with the differences between what she was and what she wished she could be—serving Voldemort as opposed to serving Harry. She dismissed it. Even if she changed allegiances, she knew they would never accept her. She had killed Scrimgeour, Percy Weasley, Harry's parents, and Pansy Parkinson, and she would still slay more of them, even now. They disdained her brand of honor. They knew nothing about the gestures she made that might have softened them towards her, such as setting the narcissus free and trying to destroy Sylvan and Oaken, and she would never tell them. She had done them because they were right, not because she wanted to make herself appear good to Harry.

"Move aside, Indigena," Lazuli said, stepping forward. "We know that you have a piece of the Dark Lord's soul buried here. I had wondered at the reason for your increase of wards around the garden. Now I know." She actually had the nerve to hold out a hand, as if she thought the sight of her chewed arm would sway her sister. "I know your heart. I know your version of honor. I know that you can come to us, still, and fight as viciously for us as you did for Voldemort."

Indigena snorted. "You know me less than you thought you did, sister, if you truly believe such a plea would sway me."

Harry moved up beside Lazuli, drawing her attention there in turn. "You know what the Horcruxes mean," he said. "You know that your Lord is attempting to live forever, and you _know_ what he would do with that immortality. Can you honestly say that you want him to succeed?"

_He is used to converting people with his voice alone. _But Indigena was not blind. She could see the loathing in his eyes. He might accept her on his side if she groveled, but he would never accept her differences from his plans the way that her Lord did. Voldemort had listened to her when she refused to torture others simply to cause pain. Indigena thought Harry would not do the same thing, because he would believe that what he asked her to do was right, and that she should be willing to do anything to make up for her past crimes.

Indigena greatly admired Harry. He was a Lord more after her heart than the one she served. But she had no desire to become what she would become if she followed him—believing in ideals that carried her far from the earth, into worlds she had no business inhabiting. Had the Dark Lord not approached her, had the honor debt not been called, she would have remained neutral forever, taking no place and no part in the war. She had no natural commitments to the outside world, such as Lazuli's surety that her child deserved more justice or Chalcedony's conviction that some patterns were evil, which could drag her past her garden. And she would not join for the obscure reasons that Peridot had joined—but then, there was no understanding Peridot.

Harry would make her care too much. He would make her into someone Indigena did not want to be, and devoted to ideals that had too much to do with people she would never meet.

"You know nothing about what I want," she answered Harry, "or the world that I live in now."

Harry's eyes narrowed, and his magic began to grow and pulse around him. He would probably begin draining her in a moment, Indigena knew. He seemed to have lost his scruples about draining enemies.

She was proud of him for that, in a way.

She was not proud of herself for feeling like that, though, because it was only another emotion, another thought, that made her world more complicated than it needed to be.

She turned and cast the spell she had already studied for such a moment on the garden entrance. Even if Harry drained her now, he could not stop the spell once flown, and he would not be able to enter the garden himself. The spell was an Unassailable Curse, meaning that only someone with a Dark Mark could go into the garden.

That done, Indigena faced her enemies again. Harry had backed off, wary of magic he didn't recognize. Well, he would be, wouldn't he, after Slytherin's shack? Snape was leveling his wand. The young Malfoy had his eyes closed, as if he would try to possess her.

Lazuli just stood there, gazing steadily at her, matching her look for look and breath for breath.

Indigena looked back, gave a nod, and then shot a thorn at the Malfoy boy. Swift as she was, Harry, of course, was swifter when forewarned, conjuring a serpent that swarmed up the end of her thorn and bit off. Indigena winced at the pain, but she had accomplished what she wished to: a distraction, and the crippling of the possession gift. Malfoy had stumbled backward, and was drawing his wand.

Indigena Apparated again. She would still know if they tried to have someone with a Dark Mark—Snape, perhaps—enter the garden, but she doubted they would be so stupid as to simply rush in. Without Harry's _absorbere_ gift, they had no sure means of defending themselves from her children, and Indigena had armed her garden with weapon after weapon against such intrusions.

She landed back in the burrow, and explained the situation briefly to her Lord, who nodded in approval. Indigena herself could enter the garden at any time and retrieve the Horcrux if they decided on a better hiding place for it, but for the moment, there was no place so well-defended. And the Unassailable Curse was a good thing, forcibly separating Harry from his allies as it did. Indigena knew that Harry's presence at the destruction of the last Horcrux had been essential. Without him, his allies would have a much harder time destroying Ravenclaw's wand.

"You have done well, Indigena," her Lord praised her.

Part of her reveled in that.

Part of her despised herself for reveling.

Part of her wished for her Lord to die, even if it meant that she would have to die with him, which of course it would.

Indigena shook her head as she walked towards her garden. She had so few certainties anymore. Most of those she did were green and rooted in the earth.

_Or running around the country with a golden cup, perhaps. _


	53. Face the Darkness

**Fair warning: **The fourth scene here contains heavy slash. Don't read it if you don't wish to. It's been slightly edited from the version present on LJ and Skyehawke, to maintain the M rating.

**Chapter Forty: Face the Darkness**

Snape regarded the potion with a dubious eye.

Oh, it _appeared_ innocent, a flask of primarily green liquid, which sometimes shifted and eddied and took on a glint of blue from the fire in the hearth. But he knew as well as anyone that it was not. It was a formed and balanced poison, capable of traveling through the Dark Mark to destroy a Death Eater.

Currently, that might mean any Death Eater. Snape wanted to change the composition of the potion to insure that he and Peter—and now, it seemed, Lucius and Hawthorn Parkinson, though Snape felt less inclined to trust them—would not be affected. To do that, there had to be a test.

"Just _start_, Severus."

Snape turned and glared at the man who sat beside him. Regulus crossed his eyes and stuck his tongue out, as if to prove that he was more childish than Snape. Then he rolled up his left sleeve and held out his arm. Snape stared in silence at the black Grim that rested there.

"You can test the poison on me," Regulus urged. "I think Lady Death will protect me. She did say that I couldn't die until she came for me."

"And perhaps now and through the poison would be the means by which she decided to come for you," said Snape. "Have you thought of that?" He didn't add _you idiot_ to the end of his sentence. He didn't need to.

Regulus shrugged. His eyes were happier than they had been in a long time. They always were when he was conducting childish arguments, Snape thought spitefully. "If she really means to kill me, it's inevitable, Severus. You could leave the poison alone, and then she would arrange to dump it on my head as I passed under it. Besides, I should be a useful control subject, shouldn't I? I don't have anything of Voldemort left in my arm, and you and Peter have less of him left there than the other Death Eaters. That means you can figure out the edges of his magic and learn how to tune the poison to only attack those who have a higher concentration of the Dark Lord in them."

"You realize," Snape murmured, even as he stood and retrieved the flask of poison from the shelf, "that you are speaking as if the Dark Lord were a burrowing parasite beneath the flesh, and not a Lord-level wizard?"

Regulus blinked innocently. "You mean he's _not_ a grub? The pale skin and the lack of eyes fooled me."

Snape growled under his breath. Regulus _would_ play like this, would attempt to bring humor into situations where it was not to be found. But what he said made sense. And while Snape could use both himself and Peter as willing test subjects, they were far likelier to die than Regulus was.

He picked up the flask of poison and looked carefully at the Grim on Regulus's arm, then down at his shadow. That shape was currently curled up in sleep, however, and seemed unlikely to object.

Snape drew his wand, and cast the spell he'd developed to work with the poison. Of course they would not have the chance to track most of the Death Eaters and splash the poison on them; they must reach out from a distance to kill them. This spell would turn his own Dark Mark into a conduit to transfer the potion, once they were sure that it worked.

He hissed the words quietly, and watched the Dark Mark begin to glow blue, a light that the potion picked up. Then, concentrating on the idea of impurities in the mark on Regulus's arm, traces of Voldemort, he carefully uncorked the flask and splashed a few drops on the Grim.

He felt the poison attack at once, sorting through the blackened flesh, chasing any traces of the Dark Lord—the caster of the Mark and the developer of the spell that created it. Snape was grateful, at this point in time, that Voldemort had insisted on being the one to Mark every Death Eater himself. If he had allowed his followers to do so, they would have had to figure out every single "lineage" of Marks and develop poisons that would annihilate each chain, back to the first person who had received the snake and skull from Voldemort himself.

Regulus made a pained grunt. Snape reached out and clasped his hand without taking his eyes from the Grim, or loosening his half-aware trance of the poison's shifting and searching.

This was the most _self-aware_ potion he had ever developed, without a doubt. It raced through the twists and curves of the Grim, now in the flanks, now in the hindquarters, and pulled him along. The rest of the world became dim. Now and then Regulus clasped his hand more tightly, and Snape squeezed back, but most of his mind was riding along on that strange journey.

The poison could find nothing, though, the way that Regulus had said it would not be able to. Now and then it brushed up against the edges of a cold and dark power—Lady Death—but that was not what it had been trained to seek. It wanted what it had been trained to seek. It coiled sullenly in the middle of the Grim mark, and finally flushed back to the surface. Snape opened his eyes fully to see the blue-green liquid squeezing and pattering out of Regulus's arm, useless now, soaking the floor as little more than a puddle the color of algae.

"Did you learn what you needed to know?" Regulus's voice was slightly breathless.

Snape nodded. "The poison _will_ seek traces of Voldemort," he said, eyes slightly narrowed as he watched the puddle. "I did not know that it would bring me along so intensely for the ride. It means that I will be there when most of the Death Eaters are destroyed." He considered the Yaxley twins and Indigena for a moment, then shrugged. It was unlikely the poison would kill them where a werewolf and blood curses had not managed. But if he could destroy the rest of the Death Eaters, he would count himself satisfied.

"That's a good thing, isn't it?"

"Yes." Snape looked up and met Regulus's eyes. "Peter, Hawthorn, Lucius, and I may be sick for a time—" he could not help but think it was the least Lucius deserved "—but it is the others who will die. Thank you."

Regulus gave him a strange, wistful smile, and stood. "I always like helping you when I can, Severus. Lunch?"

Snape nodded. There would be fewer students in the Great Hall now due to the time, and he had no class to teach after lunch today. He and Regulus could take their time and both speak and eat at leisure.

Regulus kept looking at him wistfully on the way to the Great Hall. Snape found that he had no idea why.

SSSSSSSS

Hawthorn had pictured her first days of freedom—if she ever had them—as days of solitude and silence. She would spend time in the Garden, behind locked and warded doors. She would gaze out the window at the dragonsbane and pansies surrounding the hawthorn bush, the memorial to her family. She would renew the charms and remove the dust that would have accumulated in her home during her long absence. She would relearn, if slowly, the political landscape of Harry's allies and friends.

She had never anticipated her first days back being a struggle against the Ministry, who were reluctant to accept that she had truly been under the Dark Lord's control.

Harry had offered her what help he could, but Hawthorn had refused it unless and until she saw that she could not regain her property and money any other way. She _wanted_ to achieve things on her own. For so long, her mind and her will and even her body had not been her own, and it had taken Harry to bring her back from her hatred to freedom. She wanted to do this herself.

When she arrived at the Garden and found Aurors there, she had leveled her wand at them and asked in a cold voice what they were doing. They had tried to dismantle the Parkinson wards on the house, she found, but they were too ancient to respond well to that; the most they'd done was gone dormant and stop stinging anyone who walked through the door. The moment they sensed her, they were up and surging again, surrounding her in lines of light and flowers, and the Aurors looked more worried about that than about her wand.

One of them did answer her, however, a witch in her twenties with a pug nose, bright blue eyes, and an expression of nervous defiance. "We—Minister Juniper seized the property of known Death Eaters under martial law. We can use the house as a headquarters for as long as we like." She paused, and then, probably because she was in that temperament where daring and stupidity were the same thing, added, "And the Ministry has taken command of your funds, too."

"I see," said Hawthorn. The wards grew thicker at her back, and she knew they would listen to her, kill the Aurors if she told them to, but she did not wish to start her return to the wizarding world with murder. Humiliation would do.

"_Protego_," she told the wards.

The Aurors looked confused, since they connected the word with the Shield Charm and not the special commands Hawthorn had bred into her wards. They were even _more_ confused when the lines of light surged forward and surrounded them, snapping at them with the heavy teeth of sundews and Venus-flytraps.

The pug-nosed Auror was the first to howl and dash for the door, her robes flying behind her. The rest followed shortly after, especially as the wards nipped at their ankles and their bums. Hawthorn watched, smiling, as one who fell sustained bruise after bruise before he could stand and scramble out of the house.

The witch did pause halfway down the path to yell hoarsely, "This is still the Ministry's house, and they will hear of this!"

"I'm looking forward to it," said Hawthorn calmly, and shut the door, and turned to attend to the disarray both Aurors and months without her had put into the house. The wards danced smugly around her while she cleaned.

The next morning, of course, she had received a polite demand from the Ministry to come to them at once and explain what she was doing in her house. Hawthorn had complied, and taken some pleasure in showing her amber eyes and her teeth to the terrified young wizard who had to greet her. He kept stumbling, staring, and doubtless remembering that there was still one night of the full moon left, before he finally ushered her in to "see someone."

That person turned out to be Aurora Whitestag, to Hawthorn's faint surprise. It seemed the Acting Minister's favorite hound was reduced to licking at the bootstraps of freed Death Eaters. In truth, Hawthorn couldn't say she was surprised when she thought about it. Aurora was undeclared, and Juniper favored the Light. He wouldn't keep someone without his own fanatical devotion in a position of true power for long.

Aurora sat behind a desk and frowned at her. Hawthorn smiled back, and thought about murmuring that she was hungry—which happened to be true—but decided not to, in the end. She doubted that Aurora would react as badly to that as the young wizard at the desk in the outer office had.

At last, Aurora cleared her throat and looked down at the papers in front of her. "You do realize that you can't legally own property as a werewolf _or_ as a former Death Eater," she said. "And property and money taken under martial law are used for the good of England, which means that claiming you should have them and can put them to better use makes you a traitor to your country."

Hawthorn blinked a bit. Then she said, "I was not aware that a law had been passed forbidding werewolves to own property once again. I am sure another rebellion would have started if it had."

Aurora blushed and bit down on her lip, then looked at her notes. "It—it's a provisional measure," she said. "Temporary. Most werewolves who live in London now are biting Muggles, inducting them into their packs. That's breaking the International Statute of Secrecy. Until the Ministry can make sure that you aren't one of them, it can't allow you back into your home."

"I'm currently _in_ my home," Hawthorn pointed out. "The wards recognized me, and Parkinsons have possessed the Garden for centuries."

"Yes, but you aren't _supposed_ to be there." Aurora looked at her as if she thought this would carry some weight.

Hawthorn shrugged. "As little as I care for legal fights, I will wage them. I have returned from my slavery to Voldemort. I have never bitten a Muggle." _That I remember._ The nights she had run as a werewolf without Wolfsbane were sketchy in her memory, but she did not know if she could have distinguished Muggles from wizards in that state unless Voldemort told her to bite only a certain kind of person. And he had been far more interested, generally, in sending her after his enemies, those people Harry loved. "I have not violated the Statute of Secrecy."

"Yes, but the Ministry has to be _sure_, you see." Aurora rustled the papers in front of her.

Hawthorn watched her for a moment, then nodded. "_I_ see," she said. "You know that you can't truly do anything about my possession of my home, but you want to threaten me into thinking you can. And you know that if I went to Gringotts and demanded the money from my vault, the goblins would oblige me, thus possibly opening a rift between the goblins and the Ministry that you really don't want or need at the moment. And you haven't moved against the packs in London because they own little property that you really want, and because you're frightened of them. I understand the true state of things perfectly." She leaned nearer and winked, ignoring the flinch that the other woman gave, as if trying to get away. "Don't worry. I won't spread that outside the office. It will be our secret."

"That is not the true state of things at all," said Aurora, who had flushed again, and looked as if she desperately wished she had stronger words, or stronger beliefs, to back her up. "You are a criminal if you remain in the Garden. It is an Auror safehouse."

"No, it's not. It's my home." Hawthorn arched an eyebrow and sat up. "And if you don't agree to stop sending Aurors at me, they will get bitten. Perhaps. Perhaps I might simply bury them in my garden and give them to my flowers to eat."

"Do not even joke about that!" Aurora slammed her hand into the middle of the desk, perhaps hoping to startle Hawthorn, or wound her, since werewolf ears were more sensitive to sudden noises. "Or you will remind people of Indigena Yaxley, who killed the Minister."

Hawthorn felt an upsurge of hatred and violence as she recalled the night of the assassination, the night she had become a slave again. But she quelled it. There were more important things in life. Harry had told her that, but he should never have had to tell her. She should have been able to work it out on her own.

"I don't care," she said. "My home and my money are my own, and I demand that you return them to me immediately, or I will cause a scandal that the Ministry cannot afford."

Aurora hissed under her breath. "Don't you see that this is the wrong way to go about things? The Acting Minister _will_ fight you. He doesn't care for werewolves, or for Death Eaters."

Hawthorn shrugged and stood. "You are the one who has to make this decision," she said. "You are the one dealing with me. Promise me my home and my money right now, and then the Ministry won't have the outcry."

Aurora closed her eyes, and looked slightly ill. Hawthorn watched her, and nodded slightly. She had smelled the wavering, the doubt, in the woman's scent. She was remembering that she had her own allegiances, beyond those to the Ministry. Or perhaps she had already begun to distrust Juniper before Hawthorn entered the fray. Either way, this was up to Aurora Whitestag now, and not anyone else.

In a series of swift movements, Aurora seized what looked like the deed to the Garden, scrawled her name at the bottom, took up another sheaf of parchment, and signed again. Then she handed both in silence to Hawthorn, who took and studied them. One was, yes, the deed to the Garden, and the signature revoked Ministry possession of it. The other document ordered that Hawthorn have the money in her vault released to her, or an equivalent amount of money, if Galleons had already been taken out and used for something else.

Hawthorn nodded to her. "Thank you. See, that wasn't so hard."

Aurora sighed and ran a hand through her hair, but, in the end, shook her head. "Your problems aren't mine, Mrs. Parkinson, and my problems aren't yours," she said quietly. "I'd appreciate it if you would leave now."

_That's the truest thing anyone has said since I entered the Ministry. _Hawthorn nodded to her again, and took her leave. The wizard behind the desk in the outer room shrank away from him as she stalked past him. Hawthorn looked once over her shoulder and gave a single, deep sniff, as if she were memorizing his scent for the hunt that night. He kept himself from fainting with fear, but, by the look of it, that was a near thing.

Only when she had left the Ministry entirely and was walking in Muggle London did Hawthorn take a moment to lean against a wall and take a deep breath, because only there could she be sure there weren't Aurors and wards watching her.

She could collapse. She could give in to the remnants of slavery and hatred in her mind.

Or she could go on and live, the way she would have to. She had lost so much already. She could not let another loss cripple her.

She stood upright, shook her head, wrinkled her nose at the immense amount of rubbish in Muggle London, cast a Disillusionment Charm on herself, and Apparated home.

SSSSSS

Draco opened his eyes slowly on the morning of Halloween. This ritual would begin the moment they woke, and continue until the moment they fell asleep. That meant his shadow should be extending across the floor by now.

It was.

Draco caught his breath. His shadow was the color of ink, sharply defined even against the green carpet of the Slytherin bedroom. It overlapped the edge of the bed, ran along the floor until it met the wall, overcame a good portion of the wall, and then flowed into the loo. He propped himself up on an elbow, and the shadow moved with him, but not as far as it should have.

Of course, it also shouldn't have been cast that far by the low amount of light in the room, either. The Casting of Shadows was a means of embodying the Darkness in a courting pair; the size of the shadow referred to how much they had of traits like selfishness, greed, and the will to dominate others. It was Draco's soul that shed this particular blackness, not his shoulders and arms.

And that had an effect on the way he reacted and thought about this day, of course. He was deeply pleased by the look of the shadow. He was what he _should_ be. No one else should dare to try and change him. He would do anything for those people he cared for, but that number of people was extremely small. And he would demand what he wanted at the most inappropriate times and in the worst situations. He was a childish brat in many ways, but then, most of the people who would criticize him for that were not people he had to listen to.

Behind him, Harry gave a little sigh and stirred.

And the bedroom vanished in night.

Draco caught his breath in surprise before he realized what must have happened. Harry's shadow was so large and so black that it had swallowed his own; in fact, it extended across the bedroom like a swathe of night. He reached out and ran his hand through the blackness, smoothing his hand up and down. It felt cooler than he had expected, but it warmed up quickly, like flesh exposed to a snowstorm and then brought inside again.

A hand gripped his shoulder, and Harry's voice whispered, "Draco?"

"I'm here." Draco turned, groping his way through the night, and felt his elbow bump into Harry's shoulder. "Sorry," he said, and then he caught the edges of Harry's face and kissed him fiercely.

Harry gave as good as he got, leaning forward until Draco was pressed flat into the bed, biting and nipping as if he couldn't have enough. Draco had expected that to happen, and his pleasure grew.

A moment later, Harry drew back with a gasp. "What am I doing?" he whispered.

"This is the side that you normally keep caged coming out, Harry," Draco said calmly. "And that's the reason I said that I wouldn't mind having sex when we were in the middle of this ritual, but that you might not like it. I don't think you'll be able to hold yourself back from doing whatever you want with me. And I _like_ that." He moved his legs up, clasping them around Harry's waist, and squeezed tightly.

Harry swallowed, and Draco could feel him fighting the impulse to grind back, press down, and bring them both to orgasm, and ignore the fact that they had classes today. "I suppose this is why the joined couple is considered irrevocably joined after this," he whispered. "They've seen things about each other that no one else ever will."

"Partly," said Draco. "Of course, this ritual was also designed to bring out obsessive and jealous qualities around each other, and until it was formalized as the point where no one could interfere, there were—well, incidents of one partner tearing someone apart whom they thought was eyeing the other one."

"_Draco._"

He chuckled and reached up, this time making sure to cradle Harry's face gently. "You don't need to sound so distressed, Harry. I honestly don't think anyone will try to snog me, given your shadow and your presence. And I also think that you can control yourself from dispensing jealous violence. Just think about me instead." He arched his neck and kissed Harry once again. Harry made a low purring noise, like the rumble of some great cat, and returned the kiss with interest, once more.

And then the shadow dissipated, at least for Draco. Familiarity with it did let the partners see each other. He noticed at once that Harry's eyes had deepened in color, the way that they had when he was exploring the connection between Voldemort's mind and the pool of blackness in the bottom of his own thoughts. His expression was conflicted, twisting between passion and incredulity that he could feel that kind of passion.

Draco liked it. He thought that had been one thing Harry never understood about him: how he could be so unafraid of not only Harry's magic, but also his darkness.

The simple answer was that Draco was a Dark wizard, and he _still_ could not imagine Harry hurting him, no matter which personality facet possessed him at the moment.

He kissed him one more time, lingeringly, and this time got the response he wanted, hard and demanding, the response that Harry was too afraid of himself to give most of the time. He clasped his legs around Harry's waist hard enough to wring a grunt out of him, and tried to roll them over so that he was on top.

Harry pushed back down instead, holding him still, and this time reached out with obvious intent to remove his pyjama top.

Draco sighed happily, at least until Harry started kissing him breathless again. They could be a little late for breakfast. No one who mattered would mind.

SSSSSSSSS

Harry knew what the ritual was supposed to do. Everything that he'd read and which Draco had told him about the purpose of it made sense. So he wasn't _surprised_ to feel the emotions surging up in him.

He just—he'd never realized to what a large extent they were present in him, as long as he gave himself free rein to feel them.

Yes, his ability to control himself could account for some of it, and so could his fear of expressing emotions like this, but still, it was just much easier to think of himself as _not_ jealous.

It wasn't that easy to realize that, after the first few moments in which their shadows had reduced people to stunned stares and whispers, he was watching anyone who looked at Draco for too long. Most of the stares probably weren't sexual. They were probably discussing how selfish he was, from the shape of his shadow, or how he could stand to be partnered to someone who, with a shadow like that, resembled the next Dark Lord.

But Harry didn't _like_ it, anyway.

It was a stupid emotion, silly, primitive. It wasn't as though the school was filled with people dying to court either of them. It wasn't as though Draco, having been the one to initiate a ritual that lasted three years, would leave him to run off with the Hufflepuff girl who sighed dreamily after him as she left Transfiguration. And she was a fifth-year, anyway, so she was probably just entertaining innocent dreams.

He didn't like it anyway. He found himself with the strongest desire to hide Draco behind his back for the majority of the day, or shove him in a closet and make love to him until Draco forgot there was such a House as Hufflepuff. He growled at the girl, who started and scurried away when she saw him watching.

Draco, of course, was enjoying himself hugely. He didn't deliberately flirt with anyone else—he was rather occupied in watching people who stared after Harry and hissing at them—but he did sit back sometimes, and look at Harry with a smug smile, and revel in the close attention.

_Do I not pay attention to him, normally?_

_Not this closely._

And Harry knew that, in one part of himself, but it was as though his normal mindset, for one day, had become a painting, and this kept-out part had surged forward to become the reality. He knew how he usually felt, but that didn't matter when he was watching Draco lick butter from his fingers and knew that Michael, across the room at the table where he ate with other refugees, was watching, too.

Harry wanted to slam Michael against the nearest wall and demand that he stop staring.

He went to Arithmancy with Draco bristling, on edge, his magic and his shadow both snapping around him like banners. Professor Vector did ask him to calm down so that the windows she opened to throw light into the classroom would actually be effective. Harry acknowledged her with a grunt and tried to concentrate on his equations, instead of the way he wanted to hunt Michael down or take Draco somewhere and shag him silly.

Draco sat next to him and innocently did equations of his own, which didn't help. His narrowed eyes at anyone who came near Harry were probably less noticeable than Harry's scowl.

That led Harry back into the pattern of thought about how he normally didn't look at Draco like he was the center of the universe. And that presented him with a nasty idea.

_What if that means that someday, he does get fed up with not being important enough to me, and leave? What if he takes a lover who actually gives him the attention he deserves, and doesn't make him play second fiddle to a war?_

The thought, once lodged, burned in his belly like a hot coal. And Harry finished Arithmancy with one desire firmly in mind. He waited until Draco had taken a step past the door in their usual direction, then grabbed his hand and pulled him in the opposite one. Their shadows paced them. Harry paused once to study them, and saw his shadow, snake-shaped, carrying Draco's dragon-shaped one in a bundle of writhing coils, tongue flickering hard and eyes maddened.

"Harry?"

"Here." Harry threw open the door of the nearest room and raked it with his eyes. His sense of other people's magic had already told him it was empty, but he wanted to make _absolutely_ sure. Other people didn't get to share what he was about to do with Draco.

"Harry—"

"Hush," said Harry, and shut the door behind them, and shoved Draco up against the wall. Draco blinked at him, then shook his head.

"I haven't been looking at anyone else," he said, softly.

"I know that," said Harry, and fell to his knees in front of him, undoing his trousers with hands that shook with eagerness and impatience. "I'm just making sure that you never do, either."

Draco opened his mouth to retort, and then his eyes rolled and his head fell back against the wall. Harry knew why. He had not only opened Draco's trousers by then and fastened his mouth rather firmly around him, but he had done what he'd never dared before and brought his magic directly into play. A current of it was coursing through Draco's skin where Harry's hand rested on his groin, running like stinging, biting lightning.

"Harry! What is that—why did you never—"

Harry ignored him. For one thing, it wasn't as though Draco couldn't figure out the answer to that question if he searched for it. More to the point, he had more important things to do.

He sucked, hard, not with the gentleness that he'd always used before, and which he knew Draco deserved. He'd always been afraid—of losing control, of hurting Draco, of frightening him. Now he knew that he wasn't going to hurt Draco, he couldn't frighten him, and, well, what was the Casting of Shadows about but letting down barriers?

His magic gathered in his mouth. This time, Harry commanded it to ride his tongue, increasing the sensation, taking the pleasure that flowed out of Draco's body and feeding it back, until Draco could also feel what Harry felt, such as the way Harry had to work to keep his teeth wrapped back and away when he really wanted to use them.

"You can," Draco whispered.

Harry glanced up at him, never stopping his task, and silently rejoiced. Draco's eyes had gone so hazy that Harry doubted he could see far, and his hand trembled as he reached down to stroke Harry's hair.

"Please," Draco said. "A bit of using your teeth—is all right. I don't—" And he arched his back, unable to finish the sentence, as Harry curled another loop of pleasure through him.

So Harry used his teeth, just a bit, then used his tongue to soothe the hurt, and then sent the pleasure flowing forward again. This was more delicate work than he'd ever used it for. That didn't matter. He knew his magic would do exactly what it was told.

And so would Draco.

Draco came hard, with a cry that rather made Harry hope people were passing up and down the hall, so that everyone could hear him. He swallowed what landed in his mouth and licked his lips equally hard, sitting back and catching Draco as he slid down the wall, then leaning close so that he could nuzzle his nose into his hair.

"I really, really want you," he said.

Then he paused, wondering if he should say that he really, really _loved_ him, instead. But Draco's eyes were open, and he saw the doubt, and he reached up and dragged Harry's head down to his, kissing him thoroughly. Harry knew what he was saying clearly. He could hear of love whenever he wanted to. He knew Harry loved him. He wasn't as sure of Harry's lust.

"Now," said Draco, when he'd recovered a bit, "I want you to put up locking and silencing spells on the door, and fuck me properly." He raised an eyebrow. "And, before you ask, yes, I know we're going to miss Transfiguration. It's worth it."

"I wasn't even thinking about that, to be honest," Harry muttered, and reached down to pull Draco's shirt off.

Draco's voice was full of pure, if breathy, triumph.

"Good."


	54. Holding Their Own

**Chapter Forty-One: Holding Their Own**

"I don't mean anything personal by it, Malfoy. I'm just saying that when Saturday comes, the Gryffindor team will make the Slytherin team wish they'd never heard of Quidditch. You don't need to get into a snit about it."

Harry rolled his eyes. Connor and Draco hadn't stopped arguing about Quidditch ever since McGonagall had announced that the Gryffindor-Slytherin match would be held as normal. The wild Dark had taken no students since Amanda Bailey, and the Ministry had softened its pressure to close the school once they saw (and actually believed) that. Besides, the Headmistress believed they should continue to live as normal a life as possible, and to many students, Quidditch spoke "normal life" as nothing else could. There would be professors watching on the grounds, as well as students that Moody had trained and wizards and witches who had come for teaching but not departed for their home villages yet. Voldemort probably didn't have enough Death Eaters to defeat that many people even if he sent them all, and he would be an idiot to risk them all in one place after the disaster of the Midsummer battle.

What really concerned Harry—though he wasn't saying it aloud, because he didn't want anyone else to think he was _dreadfully_ worried—was that he wouldn't be there.

Juniper had sent him a peremptory letter on the same day he'd finally informed McGonagall that the Wizengamot had decided the school could stay open. Apparently, the International Confederation of Warlocks had made a decision on the Statute of Secrecy. Harry was to hear the news in private, before it was announced to the British wizarding world at large. Juniper had called it "a gesture of reconciliation." Harry had braced himself to hear that they'd determined every time he broke the Statute was a crime and that he should be locked up in Tullianum. He would refuse to submit to that, of course.

And then politics between Juniper and Harry would become—rather interesting.

But that visit was set for the Saturday of the Slytherin-Gryffindor Quidditch game. Harry had fretted until Draco had reminded him just how many people would stand around the Pitch. He thought the greater danger would come from people trying to surreptitiously hex the players of the team they didn't favor. And, in the end, Harry had to agree.

He had been more inclined to listen to Draco since the Casting of Shadows. He wondered if that was a bad thing or not. At least it wasn't making him interfere in arguments about Quidditch.

"If Harry still played on the team, you'd lose, you know," Draco said mutinously as they drew near the Great Hall. "Don't even _pretend_ that you don't know that, Potter. He's worth more than the whole Gryffindor lot of you."

"Did he tell you that while you were still drunk from his shagging?" Connor muttered. "Or is this from fantasies about being squeezed between 'Quidditch-toned thighs'—"

"I don't want to hear _any_ of this," Harry declared, and pushed past them both to enter the Great Hall alone. He could feel the smoldering glares on his back. The one thing Connor and Draco seemed to agree on was that they both hated anyone who interrupted one of their arguments.

Harry sat down at the Slytherin table and regarded the head table for a moment. Snape gave a shallow nod of his head.

So. He'd perfected the poison that worked through the Dark Marks, then, or thought he had. Harry Transfigured an extra fork into a piece of sausage and used his own fork to eat it nervously. Snape had tested the potion thoroughly on himself and Peter, and even Hawthorn, who had agreed to it, rather surprising Harry. Lucius had watched them with disdainful eyes when they asked and refused to submit himself to it, at least until Draco had a quiet but violent talk with him.

They might be able to poison most of Voldemort's Death Eaters this weekend, in fact.

Harry swallowed his food without tasting it. He knew that this was one of the few offensive strikes they could make in the war—so far, they'd found no way around the curse on the Sword of Gryffindor, their probes at Indigena's garden had revealed more than a hundred different varieties of plant, and there was no way to call up Evan Rosier on command—but it still struck him as risky. He preferred all-out defensive war.

_Or maybe I only think that because Snape might not wait until I'm back to use the poison._

Harry shook his head and resolutely attended to breakfast. He could hardly watch _every_ single thing that happened around him and guide it personally. That interfered with the free will of others, in the end. He would go to his meeting with Juniper like a good little diplomat—taking his sworn companions with him, of course, in case Juniper "accidentally" tried to trap him in the Ministry—and trust the others to take care of themselves.

SSSSSSSS

Connor grinned fiercely as he strode out onto the Quidditch Pitch. He could feel the excitement hovering in the air around him, and howling through his body, skimming like a wind along the ribs.

They were going to _win._

He felt a sharp satisfaction and joined power that he only felt when he was in proximity to the other members of the Quidditch team. He turned, skimming his eyes over them, and was rewarded with steady nods from their Beaters and Chasers. Ron caught his eye and bared his teeth in what could only be considered a smile because he probably didn't mean it as a snarl.

Connor waved his arm to him, and then turned and focused on the middle of the field ahead, where Madam Hooch stood with the balls beside her and her own leg swung over a broom, her expression stern and forbidding.

Memories of other games tried to intrude: the absolutely magnificent one that they'd played last year, for example, acting and reacting around the balls like one being, or rolling and dodging and curving in an attempt to catch the Snitch from Harry in fifth year, at which he'd failed as usual. Connor pushed them away. What really mattered was the game in front of him, and the win they would have—they _would_ have it, he was certain—and how he would fly, not how he had flown.

The Slytherin team lined up on the other side of Madam Hooch. Connor sneered at them. He could do that. The Slytherins were no longer his enemies because of House affiliation, or because he believed the lies that Sirius had told him. They were enemies simply because they were really _bad_ Quidditch players. They had let themselves become too dependent on Harry's skill as Seeker, and then they'd scrambled to fill the holes last year when he didn't play. And now they were still scrambling, since their best Beater last year had left Hogwarts.

_They know they're going to lose, _Connor thought, seeing the gnawed lips and the anxiously darting eyes. _They can't win unless some disaster happens, and they know it._

He waited patiently as Madam Hooch gave the usual speech that never prevented the Slytherins from cheating anyway, and then Ron and the Slytherin captain shook hands. They were apparently attempting to crush each other's wrists. Madam Hooch cleared her throat pointedly at last, and they let go of each other.

And then the moment came. Connor felt excitement rearing up in him like a wild horse, and crouched a little over his Firebolt.

The whistle.

The balls flying.

And the teams unfolding, opening outwards like a rose, Connor flying precisely where he was supposed to go, and knowing that Ron and the others were going where they were supposed to.

This was going to be one of the good ones, he could tell almost at once. The team danced behind him like a swarm of bees, thinking and doing one thing. The Slytherin Seeker, meanwhile, flew high to look for the Snitch and almost collided with one of his Chasers, who were trying—unsuccessfully—to get the Quaffle away from Gryffindor.

Right on cue, an enormous banner unfolded from the Gryffindor seats, and the roar of a lion rolled out over the stands, not drowned by the enthusiastic hissing from the Slytherin seats. Connor grinned. Parvati had been to enchant the lion's roar, even if Dean had drawn it.

And then he began to look for the Snitch. The first rule was to start in the opposite direction from the one where the Slytherin Seeker was looking.

SSSSSSSSS

Harry entered the Ministry in resignation. He had four sworn companions with him, but that wasn't the true source of the stares. Everyone would recognize him now; the newspapers had been running enough photographs lately, as they reported on the attacks of the wild Dark at Hogwarts and suggested that Harry couldn't do anything about it.

That was true, actually. Harry was only surprised that they seemed to consider it news.

The ride to the Minister's office was silent. Aurors had appeared to accompany them before they crossed the Atrium, and they didn't bother to conceal their tight grips on their wands and their suspicious glares. Harry didn't mind that much, but he had to think determined, glacial thoughts in order to calm the agitation of his companions. Even Syrinx looked as if she expected an attack any moment.

The corridor outside the Minister's office was crowded with yet more Aurors, to the point where Harry wondered if any of them were doing anything else. He still kept his face blank, though, and thanked his childhood training. By the time they reached the office door, he had taken to keeping one hand on Owen's side, low, where it wouldn't be seen. Owen's breathing had at least eased, and Bill and Charlie seemed content to stare hard into faces and memorize appearances for later.

"Enter," said Juniper's voice when one of the Aurors escorting them knocked.

They stepped inside, and Harry nodded. "Acting Minister," he said, wanting to make it clear on what basis he'd approached the other man immediately.

Juniper looked up from behind his desk. His face was more care-worn than Harry had thought it would be. Of course, it would help if he had grown that concerned over important things, instead of assuming that the Muggles were a greater threat than Voldemort, Harry thought.

He did his best to chain his temper. The Casting of Shadows had taught him even more than he'd wanted to know about his own darkness. He _could_ get angry and destroy Juniper in a glorious burst of temper. That didn't mean it was a good idea.

"Harry," said Juniper, carefully emphasizing the lack of a title. "You were told to come alone."

Harry snorted. "Did you truly think I'd obey that order, Acting Minister?" He took another step forward, and then halted as the Aurors drew together enough to almost obscure his view of Juniper, bristling. Harry studied them coldly. None of them were truly powerful, nowhere near Snape's or even Henrietta's strength. Admittedly, that kind of magical power was rare, but it only made it all the sillier for them to oppose him. His magic stirred. He could destroy them.

"This news is only for your ears," Juniper said, as if he imagined that could cut ice with Harry. Harry didn't think he believed it any more, though. He probably thought he had to follow the forms. _He shouldn't. It only wastes time and energy—my time, his energy._

"Then send the Aurors away."

Juniper leaned forward, looking rather ridiculous peering over the shoulder of an Auror, and fastened his gaze on Harry. Harry stared back, bored. As important as the news might be, the way Juniper presented it deeply diminished his enthusiasm for hearing it.

"That will not happen," said Juniper.

"And neither will the departure of my sworn companions." Harry's arms itched with the need to fold them, but he refused to express impatience and disdain so openly through his body language. "What is the news that you have for me, _Acting _Minister? What did the International Confederation of Warlocks decide?"

Juniper sat still for a long moment. Then he cleared his throat and reached for a thick scroll of creamy parchment on one side of the desk. His hand shook. Harry thought the emotion that it made it shake anger. He shrugged, but inwardly felt a small blurt of satisfaction. Perhaps Juniper would finally see that insisting on standard, traditional forms of respect wasted his time.

"They have decided," said Juniper, holding up the scroll so that Harry could see the official, globe-shaped seal on the outside, "that you have broken the International Statute in the past to defend Muggles and wizards against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Such breaches were deemed acceptable because the Ministry's Obliviators managed to contain them." He spat the last words like acid.

Harry gave him a sweet smile.

"On the other hand," Juniper said, and he smiled in turn, "they have also declared that another breach, now that you have attained adult status and are legally responsible for your actions, will be immediate cause for imprisonment in Tullianum. You may still continue your training there, and the Ministry will bring you out for the final battle with the Dark, but you would have no freedom and no other rights." He flung the scroll across the desk like a challenge.

Harry picked it up and read it carefully. Yes, the language was formal and archaic, but Juniper was telling the truth about what it said. Harry laid it back on the desk and pushed it towards Juniper. The Acting Minister stared expectantly at him.

"I don't accept it," said Harry.

The Aurors gasped as one. Harry wondered whether they had fainted when Juniper asked them to deal with the aftermath of Voldemort's poisoned rain in Cornwall.

"You _must_," said Juniper. "This is not based on personal dislike anymore, nor the whims of an overindulged little boy. You must obey international law, Harry, or the Confederation has the power to raise sanctions against Britain, including denying British wizards the right to travel to other countries."

"I notice that France, Portugal, and Spain all abstained from condemning my actions," said Harry.

Juniper frowned. "Rather. But, of course, those Ministers are in your robe pocket."

Harry snorted. "Wanting to help the British Isles does not equal obeying me, Acting Minister. And I mean this. If it comes to a choice between saving people and preserving the International Statute of Secrecy, then I will choose to preserve lives. And if, after that, you try to imprison me in Tullianum, I will rebel again."

"It will mean that our people suffer—"

Harry couldn't help it; he snarled, and his magic touched his shoulder with a serpent. Juniper shut up, his eyes fastened warily on the snake-shaped patch of air. "Our people are _already_ suffering," Harry snapped. "From fear, from want, from the certainty that some of their numbers are turning to Dark Arts and becoming Death Eaters, since they have no other choice under that _stupid_ law you created, unless they wish to come to me. We are fighting a war, and of course it must be a civil war at the same time. They're longing for a true leader, and you won't give them one. Don't talk to me about suffering, Acting Minister Juniper. I have not seen you take one action that I would credit to the true desire to stop Voldemort, rather than preserve your own political power."

He both felt and heard Owen growling agreement at his side. Harry watched Juniper with narrow eyes, taking in his shocked face, waiting to see what would happen next.

What happened next was that all the lights went out.

SSSSSSSS

Draco snorted. Much as he hated to admit it, the Slytherin team was just as awful as Connor had claimed it was. The Seeker alternated between wild staring about and following the figure of Connor on his broom. The Keeper hovered uncertainly, and now and then darted towards the Quaffle, which usually enabled the Gryffindor Chasers to handily toss the ball past him. The Beaters hit the Bludgers into empty air. And the Slytherin Chasers—that they'd been put on the team at all was simply embarrassing.

Meanwhile, of course, the Gryffindor team didn't just look good in comparison, but actually _was_ good, to the point of flying in patterns that Draco could admit were beautiful, even through his haze of rage.

He shook his head at last and stood, walking out of the Slytherin stands. A few heads turned to watch him, but most people still leaned towards the game, hissing at the Gryffindors and screaming at the Seeker as if they could somehow make the difference between an inferior team and a superior one.

Draco reached the bottom of the stands and leaned his head against one of the supports for a moment, closing his eyes. How in the world was he supposed to be proud of his House when they had a teem like _that_? Slytherin House shouldn't have only two students to be proud of. He and Harry would leave the school after this year. What would that mean to the Slytherins left behind?

He sighed and turned away, walking towards the edge of the Pitch. At least, if he didn't want to watch the game, he could take over sentry duty. A refugee wizard stood at the edge of the Pitch opposite him, leaning forward with an anxious expression as he scanned the Forbidden Forest. He twitched at every shout from the Quidditch game behind him, though, and Draco knew which way he'd prefer to be facing. Well, proper training would do better than mere earnestness, anyway.

"Here, go watch the game," he ordered. "I'll take your place. I don't doubt it's what you want."

The man turned sharply to face him, probably startled by his silent approach. Draco found himself facing a wizard with large, almost bronze eyes, and dark hair. That in itself wasn't so unusual.

The shimmer around him, another face and body slowly melting into the place of his own, was.

Draco had seen them only once, but he recognized the Yaxley twins. And all his training hadn't been for nothing. He didn't resort to spells that he knew would only bounce from them—if a werewolf's teeth couldn't harm them, almost nothing would—but raised his wand and sent up a bright flare of blue sparks, the agreed-upon danger signal for Moody's wizards.

Nor did he waste time wondering what had happened to the wizard who used to stand sentry duty here. He could see small flecks of blood on the Yaxley twin's hands, and he could guess.

He charged forward instead, meeting those bronze eyes and leaping straight into their paired minds, intent on possessing them. He had no doubt they would be hard to handle, well-trained as they were.

But—well, so was he.

SSSSSSSSS

Harry heard the distinctive snarl of the wild Dark in the next moment, and doubted that this was a coincidence. He flung out his hand—the right hand, the one he still had trouble using—and ignored the trampling around him, the screams, and Owen's attempt to move him.

If what Chalcedony Yaxley had said was true, the wild Dark had come hunting _him_. It wanted his soul, that distinctive pattern. Merlin knew why, or how Voldemort had managed to interest it so much with Harry's soul-pattern, or what it would actually use a human soul for, but there it was. It had struck where he was, and even stopped taking first-years after only two attacks. Harry thought this appearance had more to do with his presence in the Ministry than any irritation with Juniper.

"Here I am," he called.

The snarl halted. Then an immense, heavy presence alighted softly beside him, like the sound of a jaguar's footfall, and Harry felt jaws open and close gently around his head.

He knew they could crush him. He held still nonetheless. The Dark was not at its time of greatest power yet. That would be Midwinter. And he didn't think it would take him now. Two years ago, it could easily have destroyed him before Midwinter. But it had waited for that time instead, wanting the full might of its magic behind it. The wild Dark was rather like Voldemort, sometimes.

Harry was well-aware that he was trying to make generalizations and guesses about the behavior of a completely unpredictable, inhuman entity. But given that he had no other means of proceeding, he might as well act as if what he believed were true, until he received definitive proof that it was not.

The teeth sank further into his skull. Harry fancied he could actually feel the buckling of bone, the moment when his skull started to give way under the pressure of those fangs.

He waited until that moment, and then he began to sing.

The wild Dark jolted, which made Harry gasp as shocks of pain rang through him from the teeth. But he ignored it, and continued to sing, pushing the phoenix voice through his throat and the blue flame from his hands. He had acquired this gift during his last major battle with the wild Dark. There was at least the chance that the wild Dark would be fascinated with it.

The wavering light of the blue flame, strangely sharp in that absolute darkness, revealed the monster that had hold of him. A manticore. That made Harry breathe a little more easily. If the wild Dark wore the same form in which it had come to him on the walls of Hogwarts, then perhaps it was being consistent enough that he could intrigue it with this.

"Do you know what this is?" Harry whispered. "The voice of the phoenix who died to defeat you."

The wild Dark growled, a little, and made his head ring again. But it didn't hurt him, instead just staring at the blue flame with wide, and, yes, fascinated eyes.

"The second anniversary of that gift is coming on Midwinter," Harry whispered. "It will be especially powerful then, especially significant. But to kill me before then—well, it would rather undo the power and significance, don't you think?"

The wild Dark gave another growl. Harry thought it was considering his offer, but that didn't mean he knew what it would decide.

SSSSSSSSSS

Snape was prepared when the flare of blue sparks arose. No, he had not expected the Death Eaters to attack today, or he would have insisted that Minerva cancel the Quidditch game. No amount of "normality" was worth having children outside with Death Eaters.

On the other hand, he always expected the worst. So that made him better-suited than most to answering the signal. While others still gaped and screamed and scrambled, he was on his feet and on his way out of the Slytherin stands. Regulus trotted to keep up with him, and on the other side of the Pitch, he could see a flurry of motion that was almost certainly Peter.

_At least this is an excuse to prevent me from having to watch my House lose in the most absurd fashion._ They really had been too spoiled by Harry's presence on the team.

Snape reached into his pocket as he ran, drawing out the flask of blue-green poison. He waited until he reached a relatively sheltered area, just behind a lone tree near the Pitch, and he could see the targets.

Draco, and a whirling, cycling, blurry figure that was likely the Yaxley twins.

Snape grimaced—he was almost sure that his poison would not destroy any Yaxley—but even if other Death Eaters were not here, distance should not be an obstacle. He drew back his left sleeve and uncorked the flask.

Regulus, the idiot, paused to hover over him, while Peter started to move past him towards Draco and the twins. Snape snarled at them both. "Peter is going to be incapacitated in a moment," he told Regulus bluntly. "Bring him back here, and go after Draco yourself."

"But—" Regulus was looking at him as if _he_ should need some protection.

"I am not a student, and I am not your brother." Peter, Snape was relieved to see, not being an idiot, had heard him and come back, crouching down beside Snape to take his arm as he held up the poison. "I do not need your protection. Go to one who does."

Regulus stayed a moment longer, staring into his eyes. Snape held the steady gaze as he poured the potion over his Mark.

Immediately, he felt the poison dive, and start burrowing through his arm, looking for evidence of the Dark Lord. He barely managed to take his wand in his right hand and cast the proper spell that would use the Mark as a conduit to the Marks of other Death Eaters. Then he bent double with both the pain and the dizzying impressions of the journey.

He was content to hear Regulus's footsteps pounding towards the Yaxley twins. _At least he overcame his bout of sudden idiocy._

SSSSSSSS

Harry began another song when he felt the teeth careening inward, this time one of pure triumph and joy. The wild Dark paused at the sound of it, and then Harry felt it quiver—this time, a motion that did not transfer itself to him—like a struck bell.

And then it was gone, and the darkness lifted, and Harry could see the office and the Aurors, all crowded near the far wall, and Juniper, frozen behind the desk, again. At least, he could see them over the shoulders of Owen and Syrinx and between the bodies of Bill and Charlie, all of whom had gathered very tightly around him.

"You're bleeding," said Juniper, breaking the silence and winning Harry's internal award for the most inane comment that a situation like this would ever need.

Harry snorted and raised a hand to trace his skull. Yes, there were rather a lot of bleeding wounds along his scalp and the edges of his face, some of them quite deep. He shrugged. He would live.

"I hope that you can at least see why I won't go to Tullianum," he said. "I have more important problems to worry about, Acting Minister. The wild Dark is one of them, since it's allied with Voldemort."

Juniper's eyes narrowed slightly. "That's impossible. The wild Dark serves no mortal wizard."

"No, but he can entice it." Harry found that he was a little dizzy, which annoyed him. He shouldn't be dizzy, not right now. He yawned, and then leaned against Owen's shoulder so that he didn't fall down. "And that's what he's done, and that's what I'm dealing with. I don't have _time_ for Tullianum."

Juniper looked as though he couldn't countenance that. Harry didn't know why. The world was rather dark and blurry and warm, and it seemed so easy to follow the sliding of the warmth into sleep. He felt Owen's arm come around him to catch him and stop him from falling to the floor, so _that_ was all right.

SSSSSSSSSS

Indigena came in reluctantly on the Gryffindor side of the Pitch. For one thing, she thought it stupid of her Lord to send only four Death Eaters, even if three of them were his strongest.

For another, she'd been ordered to watch over Feldspar.

Her nephew looked worse than ever. Long nights of torture, and long days of infiltrating the Ministry and making Aurora Whitestag believe him, were taking their toll. Every few steps he stopped to take a breath and then cough out blood. Indigena closed her eyes in silent disgust.

All Feldspar would have had to do to avoid torture was present a brave mask around their Lord. Yes, he would still have had the hard task of the Ministry, and he would still have had to watch his words, but his tasks were no harder than many Indigena had accomplished, and easier than nursing her wounded Lord back to life. And watching their words was something they all did.

Instead, Feldspar let his eyes roll at inopportune times, and whinged about going to the Ministry when their Lord was already maddened over losing Hawthorn. It was simply infuriating that Feldspar wouldn't realize his cowardly behavior couldn't win him any favors here.

Now he sagged forward with a little sigh as they came up behind the Gryffindor stands. "I'm tired," he whispered.

Indigena stifled a deep flare of irritation. And then she looked up and saw Connor Potter sweep overhead on his broom, abandoning the Quidditch game, and an idea came to her so suddenly that she could only blink for a moment.

She seized Feldspar's arm and shook him. "Stand up and fight," she hissed into his ear. "Do you know what our Lord will do to you if you don't? We came here to take hostages. So _take_ them." She gave him a violent shove forward. He uttered another sigh, but dragged himself to his feet.

And then he saw Connor, and lifted his wand.

"Not that one," said Indigena, drawing her own wand. "Our Lord doesn't want him harmed." Connor had seen them and was circling in low. Indigena was grateful for the stubborn courage that, difficult though it made protecting Connor sometimes, would draw him close when needed. "Choose someone else. I'll take him, but he has to be handled carefully, and you aren't capable of that." She made a vague circling motion which Feldspar could take as the beginning of a binding spell, if he wanted.

He did, and, as Indigena had hoped would happen, the pride he had hidden behind the cowardice flared up. He had not believed that the honor debt would ever matter, and then, when Voldemort had taken Indigena, he had not believed his reckoning would ever come. He believed the world owed him things, and he reacted to any misfortune with indignation, when he wasn't reacting to it with fear. He pushed at her arm, knocking her wand aside, and shook his head.

"No," he snarled. "If he's that important to our Lord, I'm taking him myself."

"Feldspar." Indigena let true alarm enter her voice. "Don't—"

But he'd already turned and aimed his wand at Connor, who was now lying on his broom and probably about to try his compulsion.

Indigena aimed her wand at his back immediately. She had the perfect excuse for destroying her troublesome nephew now. Her Lord did _not_ want Connor Potter harmed. That was very important. Indigena would become a little "enthusiastic" in her hatred for Feldspar and her desire to protect Harry's brother, and Voldemort would accept the loss in return for keeping said brother alive.

Instead, though, Feldspar collapsed before any spell of hers could touch him, screaming and clutching his left arm, and writhing on the ground. Indigena stared at him, then stared at her own left arm. Come to think of it, she had felt a spark of pain there, but it had faded at once.

She pulled Feldspar's robe away from his arm, and shook her head at what she saw. For some reason, the Mark had dissolved into a pile of blue-green goo.

Indigena blinked a few times. _They found a weapon against the Mark? They must have. And it can't hurt me—probably because it works with a human structure of flesh and blood and magic, and I am hardly human anymore._

Of course, if it had hit Feldspar, it might have hit other Death Eaters. Her Lord would be watching his followers fall about him, and not know what had happened. He would be alone, unless the weapon could not hurt the twins and they had already Apparated back to him. Someone had to take him the news, describe what had happened, and protect him from his enemies just in case this meant Harry had found the burrow.

Yes. Of course someone did.

The fact that it got her away from the battlefield without having to hurt anyone else made a sweet taste fill her mouth, but that, Indigena decided, could stay between her and her honor.

Just as several people made themselves annoying by trying to fire curses at her, Indigena Apparated home to comfort her poor defenseless Lord.

SSSSSSSSSSS

Draco found himself charging straight forward, skimming down a tunnel so slippery with defenses that he almost slid out the other side before he could stop himself. He coiled back and turned to face the body that waited on the other side of the twin who stood in their world. If he could control that second body, perhaps he could make it return earlier and replace the bronze-eyed one.

The mind was watching for him, though, sensitive to the presence of anyone in him who wasn't his twin, and he rose in battle.

Draco found himself assaulted with images of blood and sacrifice. The twins tore off faces like masks. They bent and fed from the opened stomachs of their victims, then drew out the scraps of flesh and braided necklaces that they hung around their throats with murmurs of various incantations. They raped without much passion, more interested in what they could gain from the act—the victim's horror and rage made a strong component in several spells that could further extend and preserve their joined lives, and keep open the gate to another world—than in the satisfaction of sex. They knew lives of lightless knowledge, which to them was joy, but which would make most other people run screaming from them.

Draco did not run screaming. He had seen awful things in his years with Harry. And these were only pictures of acts that were past and could not hurt him. The twins' images of sacrifice did not compare to the reality of a basilisk about to bite him, for one thing. He continued pressing forward, sinking himself into limbs and flesh, dodging past the grasping claws of the twin—Sylvan—which always stabbed behind him and then behind him again.

Seeing that would not work, Sylvan used the images of what they would do with _Draco's_ body once they had it. They would rape him. They would shred him. They would abduct him into the world where their second body waited, and he would go mad from the sight of what was found there.

Draco might again have managed to ignore those, but the images of rape were too much.

They couldn't interfere in a joining ritual like that. He and Harry had passed the Casting of Shadows. They belonged to each other, and no one should dare to interfere, even if it was only in a joke or an image that was designed to scare him away from a specific action.

He drove forward, screaming in pure rage, and Sylvan retreated in front of him, unnerved. He called to his brother, and Oaken replaced him, ducking into the world beyond the gate, while Sylvan and Draco burst back into the wizarding world.

That gave Draco more impetus to seize control of the body and manipulate it like a puppet, not less. He was closer to his body now, and he knew that Sylvan would hurt him if he could. When he could feel the limbs surrendering to him, he set out to break the connections that bound the twins together, shouting out incantations backwards, making Sylvan draw his wand and pass it through the air in motions that would undo the effects of some of their sacrifices, and controlling the impulses to Apparate away or hurt Draco's body.

Then the scene changed into the swirling milky nothingness of the other world, and Draco realized that Oaken must have switched them out again, pushing Sylvan's useless body back into the second space while he hunted Draco.

Draco smoothly gave Sylvan the command to Apparate to Voldemort, and drag Oaken with him, while _he_ jumped out of both minds and hurried back along the sleek tunnel to his own body. It was too bad that he couldn't give them the command to be sick all over Voldemort's boots, but there were limits.

He opened his eyes in time to see the terror and rage on Oaken's face before he vanished. He clucked his tongue. _Just because they never had anyone start to undo their spells before doesn't mean that it wouldn't happen someday. They should have been prepared._

A flash of gold traveled past him, and Draco snatched it out of the air before he could reconsider. Then he felt the fluttering of tiny wings, and knew it was the Snitch.

Laughing, he turned to consider the Quidditch Pitch. Though people milled everywhere, and the professors were herding students back to the school as fast as they could, he could see no casualties other than the one wizard the Yaxley twins had slain. Voldemort had sent his most powerful servants, sure that they could not be defeated, and look where it got him.

"Good work," Regulus Black's voice said from behind him.

Draco turned and nodded to him in a familiar fashion. "Cousin. Thank you. Is anyone wounded?"

Regulus shook his head. "Not that I can see. Of course, Severus was trying to poison the Death Eaters, and I don't know if that worked." He looked anxiously over his shoulder towards the Slytherin stands, and Draco smiled to see Snape standing, with his arm around Peter's shoulders, and giving Regulus a look that clearly said he had been an idiot to worry. "I don't think there were that many Death Eaters here," Regulus continued. "Or else the poison _did_ work, and they all died before they could attack."

Draco nodded, and held up the Snitch between his fingers, careful to hold it fast so it didn't escape. "Shall we see if we can get Slytherin credit for winning the Quidditch game?"

Regulus gave him a kind look. "We were behind by so much that one hundred and fifty points wouldn't matter."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Right. I forgot." He tossed his hand open, and let the Snitch fly away again. Then he began walking the edge of the Pitch, trying to see if his impression was true and only one person had died.

His heartbeat quickened when he saw the small group of people helping someone up the Hogsmeade road, and more when he realized the group was Harry's sworn companions. He ran towards them, and Owen, who was floating Harry behind him with a Levitating Charm, nodded to him.

"The wild Dark attacked him," he said, and sighed. "He fainted from blood loss, but we thought we should bring him back to Hogwarts instead of trusting St. Mungo's." Then he eyed Draco, and his expression changed. "What happened to you?"

"I'll tell you later," Draco murmured, his eyes locked on the sleeping Harry. Holes around the sides of his scalp and face, looking like fang marks. He kept from shaking his head and rolling his eyes. _We both held our own, it looks like. We can be grateful for that much._ He finally managed to satisfy himself that the wounds were minor, and looked back at Owen with a faint smile. "Today was a day of excitement no matter where members of the Alliance of Sun and Shadows went, it seems."


	55. The Heir Game

**Chapter Forty-Two: The Heir Game**

Harry shook his head slightly when Draco looked at him. Draco was getting damn tired of that. He'd told Harry about his exploits with the Yaxley twins as soon as Harry had been released from the hospital wing, of course, but Harry had only remained silent since.

_Well, silent and shaking his head._

"_What_?" he burst out, when Harry stole another sidelong glance at him over the extra Transfiguration essay that Henrietta Bulstrode was making him write. "Do you mean to damn me as reckless for going up against the Yaxley twins? I _knew_ what I was doing, Harry. No one else might have been able to possess them, but _I_ was. I—"

"Draco." Harry's voice was so deeply calm that Draco found himself shutting up, and blinking. "That's not it at all."

Harry's hand slipped out and cupped his cheek, lifting his head until they were eye to eye. Draco hadn't been far from him before, but now they were close enough that he felt stripped naked. Harry's eyes had an almost perilous mixture of emotions in them, affection and something like awe.

"What you did was wonderful," Harry whispered. "And nothing I would have imagined you capable of doing. The images you describe would have driven most people out of Sylvan's mind, possession gift or not. Merlin, they might have driven most people out of their _own_ minds. I didn't even know if one could pierce through the sacrificial magic that guards them to invade their thoughts at all. But you managed, and you did so _well_. I'm just thrilled and surprised by that, Draco, and proud of you, and glad that my lover can defend himself. That's all."

He leaned forward and kissed Draco deeply and slowly enough that an immediate fire sparked to life in his groin. This was kissing with _intent_, as far as he was concerned, and he grabbed Harry's neck when he made to pull back. Harry gave him a calm, wide-eyed look.

"I have a Transfiguration essay to write—"

"No, you don't," Draco argued, pushing the book and the scroll to the floor, and pushing Harry flat where they'd been. Harry went willingly, smiling up at him with bright eyes. Draco leaned down and kissed him again, demandingly, kicking the deep heat into high flames. "Not after that."

Harry turned his head to the side so Draco could access his neck, and sighed blissfully as Draco bent to bite him.

It was only later that Draco considered the possibility that he wasn't the only Slytherin in the room, nor the only person who could use honesty to get what he honestly wanted.

SSSSSSSSSS

Indigena did not know what was wrong with her. She knelt at her Lord's feet, among the remains of dozens of dead and dying Death Eaters. Their arms had bled blue-green goo that consumed their bodies for hours. The stink was awful. Some still died, screaming and thrashing, their cries and struggles both growing weaker as the poison did its work. She and her cousins—and Evan Rosier, she supposed, if one counted him—were the only true Death Eaters left. Lord Voldemort's rage was all around her, black as ink an octopus had shot, with the swirling cold of deep sea water.

All those awful and high and solemn and horrible things, and she had to bite her lip to keep from laughing.

"_Indigena._"

He might have found her out, and perhaps he would destroy her for that. Indigena could not bring herself to care. She lifted her head just enough to look at the new snake curled around his waist, which he was training to see for him. "My Lord?" she murmured.

"You are skilled in Transfiguration and in weaving with your plants to create a shadow of something that is not," Voldemort breathed.

"Yes, my Lord." Indigena's amusement admitted a bit of confusion. She didn't know why he was asking her this.

"We must push our plan forward, though Feldspar is dead," her Lord said harshly. "A loss for a loss. We are _losing_, Indigena, in the eyes of the world, and we cannot afford to lose, or Dark wizards will not join us."

_After this, I don't think many people will be rushing to join us, no matter how attractive we look, because few people have the ambition to collapse into mush, _Indigena thought, but not even the wild irreverent violence of her heart would permit her to say that aloud. "Of course, my Lord," she said instead.

"You will go to your bush that is capable of growing anything," said her Lord. "You will encourage it to grow as close and complete a replica of Feldspar's body as possible. We still need him."

Indigena felt her eyes brighten. _A challenge, a true challenge, and one that uses my skills instead of my ability to kill. _It felt like too long since she'd had a task worthy of her abilities. "Yes, my Lord," she repeated, and climbed to her feet.

She knew what her Lord would do with Feldspar's body. She found that she did not truly care, however. His plan had been in motion for a long time, long before Indigena began doubting her own loyalty, and if there was anyone who deserved the full fury of it, it was its targets.

SSSSSSSSSS

Aurora ran a weary hand through her hair. Erasmus had been speaking about Harry's defiance of not just British law, but international law, for the past two hours, and there were only so many ways that phrases about the same thing could be combined to sound fresh and new.

"—doesn't _understand_ that I am trying to think of the larger picture and life after the war—"

To her horror, Aurora had to bite her tongue to keep from retorting something about life _during_ the war, and how that was at least as important as British wizards being able to freely travel in Europe some distant day. She smoothed her face out and shook her head. _I may keep all the ridiculous sentiments to myself that I like, but sharing them with Erasmus is out of the question._

Unfortunately, Erasmus, who'd been pacing the paperwork shop that had become her office, turned around in time to see the headshake. His body bristled, and his mouth puckered in defense, as it did whenever he found someone who disagreed with him. "What is it?" he hissed.

Aurora stared at him in silence. She could see the brightening gleam in his eyes—not just fanaticism, but his own weariness of the situation. She could see his body strained taut with stress. One word in the right place, one kick at the weakest point of the structures holding him up, and he would collapse.

_He is a terrible wartime Minister. The stress is destroying him. He might have done well in peacetime, but we'll never know._

Oddly, it was that observation, which she would have agreed with carelessly if anyone voiced it, that crystallized things for Aurora. She sat up and pinned Erasmus with a fierce gaze, which seemed to both startle and please him. Obviously he thought she had retained her interest in his rambling speech even as it passed the two-hour mark.

She had not. She had simply realized that Erasmus, being a terrible Minister, was making the Ministry die with him as a player in the war. And Aurora would not have that. She had not linked her fate inextricably with his, but she had linked her fate, she thought, inextricably to the Ministry's. It _should_ be the refuge and the friend of those who were only trying to live through the war, those who did not want to fight and should not have to make the choice to do so. Aurora counted herself no friend of Voldemort, and though she was more sympathetic to what Harry was doing lately, he required things of his followers she could not give. That left the Ministry as her sole place to stand.

And she was interested in standing, not running off.

"Just thinking that you're absolutely right, sir," she said crisply. "There are things about ordinary wizarding life Harry ignores. He might _think_ he knows them and has taken them into account, but he hasn't. He would have to listen to advisers to have the full picture. No single wizard can comprehend everything about Britain's situation right now."

Erasmus nodded, pleased. Aurora watched the numerous ambiguities in her speech swim right past him. "Good," he said. "That is _good_, Aurora, that is right. I trust that I can leave you in charge of drafting a statement to the International Confederation explaining that Harry doesn't intend to obey their decree, and requesting help?" He moved towards the door. "We will need Lord-level wizards to handle him."

_You've had four in Britain already, and three of them were on the same side. And now you want to invite more in? Oh, yes, let's openly _change _the balance of power among the strongest wizards and witches in the world, and see what happens!_

But Aurora was beyond saying something like that. Events had left Erasmus behind. The events might be only in her own head for now, but they would soon enough move into the real world. She could regard Erasmus with a sort of distant pity. He was so irrelevant, and soon he would know it.

"Of course, sir," she said.

Erasmus nodded one more time, and shut the door behind him. Aurora spent a few moments carefully drawing up the long list of titles that would have to go at the head of a letter to the Confederation, watching the closed door the while. If he suddenly came back in because he wanted to discuss something else with her, he should see her there.

But he didn't return, and when Aurora subtly cast a spy spell that let her see through the door and into the hall beyond, he didn't stand there, and there was no sign of his Auror guard.

Aurora rose smoothly to her feet, and turned. She knew exactly whom she should speak to about unseating Erasmus and starting a subtle rebellion against the trend of the Ministry. It would not look strange for two of the Order of the Firebird to be together in the same office, anyway.

She opened the door of the room where she knew Cupressus Apollonis most often worked, and blinked when she found him facing her, a faint smile curving his lips. He placed his fingers together in a triangular shape and nodded to her. "Come in."

Aurora stifled irritation as she shut the door. Just because Cupressus was a bit faster than she was at seeing the obvious was no reason to turn against him. She had worked with people far more difficult than a smug Light pureblood bastard, Merlin knew.

"You know," said Cupressus, staring into her eyes. "You know that turning closer to Harry's side while preserving as much of the Ministry's neutrality and original mission as we can is the only way for those things we love to survive."

Aurora nodded. "I do." She leaned forward. "The question is, how do we do it?"

Cupressus pulled a long scroll from the side of the desk with a flourish. "I am so joyful that you happened to ask."

SSSSSSSS

The rage had passed like a storm, like a wind on the sea, like the flying buttresses of cloud that guarded too many places in his islands to be coincidence and were signs of the presence of the Dark Lady Kanerva Stormgale. He was beyond rage and into the cold swamps of hatred.

No one could match Lord Voldemort for brooding, not for regretting lost chances. Should the soul-pattern be destroyed? Harry knew about it; Lord Voldemort had felt that spark of knowledge from him before the contact between their minds cut off. And while the power in that would gather and grow until Midwinter, it left him unable to take vengeance for his fallen Death Eaters in the meantime. And the wild Dark was chancy. Binding it, even with its own interest, was no guarantee that it would join him when Midwinter came.

But no, he could not turn. The pattern was nearly complete now, and had its own momentum; it would probably continue growing, summoning flesh and blood from his three remaining Death Eaters in order to finish itself. It had its own match and its own map in Harry's soul, and so long as that existed—which it would until Midwinter—it did not have _need_ of a human vision to guide it. That simply made the matter more convenient.

But Lord Voldemort, he needed to do _something_ to express his hatred. Being where it had all begun was no longer enough. Knowing the third was no longer enough. Anticipating the expression on Harry's face when the hammer fell and he knew everything was no longer enough.

And Harry had turned the trick of tormenting him back upon him.

The snake around his waist hissed. The basilisk eggs tucked in the corner of the burrow warmed themselves as under a summer sun and did not speak yet. The hatred in his mind throbbed like a beating heart.

There was—one thing he could do. One thing that Harry's own actions had neglected to protect him against. But it was risky, and he would have only one chance. More important, thought the Lord Voldemort, high and deep in the darkness, it would require some pain to himself.

But it would cause more pain to Harry.

He looked ahead into the darkness, and chose.

SSSSSSSSSSS

Harry frowned slightly at Connor. "Of course I understand that, Connor," he said. Why his brother would have been reluctant to come to him about this, he couldn't understand. "We were so close when we were children, because we didn't have anyone else. Of _course_ you can feel neglected if you think I'm closer to other people than you." He reached out and put his hands on Connor's shoulders, ignoring the way that his right hand flinched at contact with the cloth of Connor's robes. It was only freaks of pain that dashed through his flesh which made him feel that way sometimes, and he could put up with them. "What I wish is that you had told me about this before."

Connor turned his head and glared the other way. Harry wasn't fooled. Connor's sullenness was a defense mechanism most of the time. He wanted other people to go away on the surface, but digging deeper and forcing him to confess what really bothered him yielded rich results.

"I didn't want to," Connor muttered at last. "You always seemed so _happy_, Harry. And I wanted you to be happy for once in your life." Then he turned back and scowled. "But it's not wrong to want to have a relationship with my brother, is it?"

"Of course not." Harry looked around for a moment. Connor had met him with a torrent of words about feeling neglected in the hallway near Gryffindor Tower, and there was no comfortable place to sit. In the end, he conjured chairs and pushed them back near the wall so that they wouldn't completely obstruct the corridor, then sat Connor down in one. As he took the other, he made sure not to look away from his brother's hazel eyes. "What kind of relationship do you want us to have that's different from the one we have right now?"

"I just—I want—" And Connor stopped and paused as if confounded, as if he didn't really know what he wanted. It had been Harry's experience that most people didn't. At least Connor was more aware of the costs and consequences of his desires than most people had the experience to be. He waited.

At last, Connor murmured, "I feel alone, sometimes. I know that's not true. I have you, and Parvati, and Ron, and Hermione, and more friends if I ask them to come a little closer. But I'm the only person with the last name of Potter in the world. I'm close to you, but I don't have importance and a unique gift in the war effort the way that Draco and Snape do, to justify their closeness."

"You will never have to justify _anything_," Harry said firmly.

"I feel as though I do." Connor's fingers twined anxiously together. "And I don't know how. I've tried and tried, but I don't think I'll be able to learn my Animagus form before Christmas holidays. I don't know how to _help_ you in battle, Harry. I didn't even do anything when I had Death Eaters directly beneath me during the attack on the Quidditch game. How can I help you when I'm so useless in battle?"

Harry blinked. "Connor," he said. "I don't—I'm not leaving the world, or becoming part of a different one, just because I have to fight Voldemort. I don't only want people around me who can contribute to that effort. I want people living in safehouses, yes, if they're too frightened to fight, or if they're too young or otherwise incapable of it. But why would you think that you had to start being someone other than my brother just because there's a war on?"

Connor shrugged, staring at the floor. "I don't know. Everyone else was two people, who they used to be and the person who could help you, so I thought I had to be two people as well?" He mumbled the last words.

_I wish he felt as though he could talk to me before matters got to this point. _But it was hardly something Harry could scold him for, considering how well he kept his own secrets. He gently rubbed Connor's shoulder instead, and sought for words that would reassure his brother.

"Look," he said at last. "Even if we can't share a battle-bond for the year of the War, or however long it lasts, we shared something in our childhood that no one else will ever approach. You know me better than anyone else, Connor—all the little things." He paused, but his longing to keep what he said next secret was nothing next to the longing to reassure Connor. "Sometimes I think Snape and Draco want to pretend that everything which happened before I was eleven doesn't matter, that it was just a shadow I've thrown off now. And that's _not_ true. You're the only person left who knew me all along, Connor. _That_ is all I would ever need from you. You could become great in battle, and I wouldn't love you any more. You're my brother."

Connor leaned close to him, and to Harry's relief, his eyes were bright and the jumping pulse in his throat had relaxed.

"Thank you, Harry," he whispered. "If I feel that alone again, I'll remember this, or come to you."

"I'm glad—"

Harry closed his eyes and shuddered as he felt an invisible hand grip his throat. It _hurt_. Fingers clamped down around his windpipe and started to choke him. When he stood and turned south, the pressure eased for a moment, then began again as if it had never been interrupted. It reminded him of nothing so much as the pinching that the wild Dark had used to lure him to the battlements.

"Harry?" Connor's voice sounded very far away.

"Someone's choking me," Harry whispered.

But now, along with the touch, came a voice. It was flat and smooth, without inflection—probably not human, Harry decided. It intoned words from a short distance away. When he concentrated, Harry realized the words were his name and a sort of legal refrain, repeated over and over again.

"_Harry. Born Harry Potter. Not without a surname. Offered Black, offered Snape, offered Malfoy, offered Opalline, offered Burke. But one claim over all holds him. One claim in the name of magical heir, not in the name of legality or rejected blood._"

The voice paused, and then began repeating the passage again. This time, Harry felt a twinge in his mind to accompany it. He knew exactly where the twinge originated: the part of his thoughts that held and contained the pool of darkness.

Connor was shouting his name now. Harry had no strength to respond, though. He'd dropped to his knees, and the voice and the twinge and the choking sensation grew until they became all the world. This time, when the voice reached the end of the passage, it didn't turn back to the beginning as before, but continued.

"_One claim as magical heir, for magical heirs are the most sacred and valued of children, and no one sane refuses the claim. By the name of the one born Tom Marvolo Riddle and called Lord Voldemort, by the power shared, by the magic flowing between them, the lord calls his scion home._"

The choking and the twinge grew so bad that Harry came close to Apparating immediately. He was sure he would have ended up at Voldemort's side if he did.

He couldn't _breathe._

He forced that fact away, slamming it behind the walls of his training to ignore pain, and faced the facts that mattered. Voldemort was performing the Heir-Call. It was rarely used; most parents didn't want to summon their magical heirs back to their sides and bind them for the rest of their lives, which was what the spell did, even after a severe quarrel. And most disowned wizarding children could protect themselves against the spell easily enough by marriage, joining, or adoption into another family.

Harry had no surname, though, and magical heirship was considered more important than merely legal inheritance, so Voldemort could assert a claim.

There was an easy protection against that, of course. Name a family now, bind himself to that family, and Voldemort's call must cease.

But Harry refused to let himself be driven into that. He had made the decision to reject his blood heritage freely. When and if he chose another lineage to replace that one, it wouldn't be a stopgap measure like this one was, but a carefully considered decision.

By the time he finished that thought, he was gasping on the floor, and his vision burst with patches of black and red. His body rattled limply to Connor's shaking. Had he ever had the strength to move and walk on his own? It seemed he hadn't.

Voldemort's laughter intruded over the calm repetition of the voice invoking the Heir-Call. The twinge grew worse. Harry knew which hold Voldemort was using to summon him, of course: the dark parts of his mind, the parts most similar to Voldemort's, which he'd swum while trying to learn the secrets of his silence.

But that was not all he was, even if sometimes it felt like it, even if he associated mostly with Dark wizards and used mostly Dark magic.

Harry opened his eyes carefully, and drew on the air, using his magic to force it into and out of his lungs, making himself breathe as if he were a bellows. Connor's anxious face loomed over him. Harry forced his hand to move and clasp his twin's wrist. It was a tight enough grip that Connor winced, but that heartened Harry. That meant he had some strength left for something besides Apparating to Voldemort's side and bowing down, which was rapidly becoming his overriding motive.

"Connor," he whispered. "Cast a spell into me."

Connor fumbled for his wand and drew it out so quickly that he nearly hit himself in the head with it. His voice trembled, but he managed to whisper, "_Rictusempra." _

Harry gasped as the Tickling Charm settled over him, and began to jolt him, nearly sliding his hand from Connor's. Perhaps it hadn't been the best choice, but he wasn't going to criticize it now.

Connor had Declared, and he was Harry's twin. Light magic struck down and through Harry's body, and he drew on the current of it, felt Voldemort in his Darkness flinch away from it, and began to sing.

Through the song, the voice of a phoenix, he called to the Light, again and again, remembering that he could have mercy, that he could forgive his enemies, that he limited himself, that he valued free will, that in many of his morals he was more Light than Dark. His magic swelled around him, blue flames on his arms, and then struck in a lashing golden coil at Voldemort.

The murmuring voice fell silent in confusion. Harry grinned, though it felt as if he struggled to lift his lips against stone weights. He was Voldemort's magical heir in many ways, but not _entirely_. He had Parseltongue and the _absorbere_ gift from him, and their ability to cast Dark spells drew on the same energy, but the Dark Lord had never loved or understood the Light. Harry believed he did both. He just chose not to join it.

The Light glittered in his mind's eye, and then the choking sensation on his throat and the twinge in his brain began to ease. Harry burned the threads of blackness that connected him and Voldemort, knowing it probably would cause some damage to him, too, and not caring. How _dare_ Voldemort think he could use the Heir-Call. Just because Harry had rejected Potter did not mean he would consent to have another name forced on him, to be Riddle or whatever ridiculous substitution Voldemort might have devised.

For one moment, one spinning moment, they were face-to-face, Voldemort's eyeless white mask floating before him, and Harry loaded his voice with all the venom he could to spit back at him.

_Your heir in magic, but never in spirit, in temperament, in hatred or cruelty. Not yours! Mine!_

Then the magic whirled them apart, and Harry belled in pure triumph as the connections holding them failed. He realized he was lying on the floor, clutching his brother's hand and howling like a mad thing. He didn't care. Voldemort had done his worst, and Harry had won. He could howl all he liked.

"What _was_ that?" Connor whispered, when he seemed content that Harry wasn't choking any more. He lowered his wand to the floor with a careful click.

"Voldemort tried to summon me," Harry said, and his voice was hoarse. He didn't care. He'd _won_, and he'd retained a part of his life as his own even when Voldemort tried to force him to give it up. _Take that, you bastard. _"It didn't work because you were here, and you're my twin, and you're Light, and we still have a connection that won't let me go. I rejected the Potter name, but I never rejected _you_, Connor. Even if I'm his magical heir and don't have a last name, he can't summon me that way." He closed his eyes.

"Maybe you should think about a last name," Connor muttered, as he gently pried his hand free.

Harry wasn't fooled by his tone. He knew his brother was grinning, caught somewhere between pride and embarrassment.

"No," said Harry. "Not until I want one." He closed his eyes more firmly than before, and took a deep, rattling breath. He would have to stand in a moment, and explain things to people.

For right now, though, they weren't here, and he didn't have to.

SSSSSSSSSS

Monika raised an eyebrow and stepped away from the scrying pool in which she'd watched with interest as Lord Riddle tried the Heir-Call on Harry.

_He was able to resist it. Interesting. Of course, he should become the heir of someone else soon, or perhaps the Dark Lord might try it again, with the wild Dark's help, and win this time_.

She touched the worm wound around her arm and shook her head. Poor creature. It had so looked forward to being used. She had designed it carefully, knowing that when Harry killed his enemy, she would need to send the creature into him, have it drink as much of his essence as it could, and then pull it free and place it into herself. It would feed on her like the tapeworms it mimicked, draining her of some physical energy and mass, but giving her back magic in return for it, as waste. Meanwhile, her own magic would keep her alive and help restrict the worm's damage.

She gave a final, regretful glance at the pool she had charmed to warn her of any unusual interactions between Harry and Lord Riddle, and shook her head again.

_Not today, then. Too bad._

SSSSSSSSSSS

"I told you so," Alexandre said lazily, waving one hand and dissipating the image in the prophecy-pool before Pamela's shocked eyes.

Pamela gazed blankly for a moment at the pool of liquid prophecy, the last remnants of fates that had already come true and had collected in this wild jungle where Alexandre made his home by some quirk of nature or magic. Then she covered her eyes and leaned back against a tree in thought.

"Should we involve the others?" she asked at last.

"Name me one who will help us rather than try to use Monika's worm for his own gain," Alexandre told her, voice extremely dry, "and I will fly to his home at once to speak with him."

Pamela sighed. "Coatlicue—"

"Cannot stand the sight of me, if you have forgotten, and will simply assume I am lying and wish to convene a full meeting of the Pact." Alexandre shifted, his robe rustling as it brushed the tree. 'There are problems with too strict a definition of Light."

Pamela nodded reluctantly. The Light Lady of Mexico was her dearest friend after Jing-Xi, but she also would never do something so simple as lie. She would want Monika dealt with before the full Pact, if she believed Alexandre's story at all. And Monika would deny it and destroy the evidence, and the whole trial would be useless.

"Jing-Xi?" she asked.

"Has her hands full with her own country and trying to help Harry within the limits the Pact set out," Alexandre said in a voice full of oil. "One more piece of knowledge could set her over the boundary of what the Pact deems acceptable. Besides, she would go to confront Monika immediately, would she not?"

"Damn," said Pamela. "Yes, she would." She pulled her hand from her eyes and frowned at him. "And you, Alexandre? Do I dare ask why _you_ don't want the power that Lord Riddle wields?"

His dark eyes glittered when he smiled. "You forget, Seaborn. I know prophecy. I know the moment of my death. And that power would do me no good. It is not my destiny to have it." He cocked his head, and the glitter was gone. "But we two may do something about it. Yes?"

Pamela nodded and stared at the prophecy-pool again. She did not see that they had any other choice.


	56. Defending

The poetic lines quoted here come from Swinburne's "The Leper," which probably wins for his most disturbing piece of poetry.

**Chapter Forty-Three: Defending**

"No. I'm sorry."

There was silence, but Harry thought that was mostly because Snape, Draco, and Regulus hadn't been anticipating such a calm response. When they figured out this was the only one they were going to get, they would press further and faster, of course. But for now, Harry sat back and enjoyed the cup of tea that Snape had insisted on fetching him when he heard about Voldemort's Heir-Call.

Snape shook his head slightly. Not surprisingly, he was the first to recover from Harry's refusal. "Voldemort could try this again," he said quietly. "And this time, no one might be there to save you. He might try it in dreams. From your description of the way he pulled on your mind, he did know that you were present in his head when you tried to view his plans. But could you detect him in the same way?"

"I don't know." Harry shook his head and sipped the tea once more. "I probably won't know until he does try."

"This is _serious_," said Draco. Harry wondered when he had ever done anything to suggest that it wasn't serious, but let that thought go when Draco continued, face earnest. At least this wasn't the scolding that he could easily have received just a little while ago, before Draco and Snape sought new ways to talk to him. "I think that you should take the last name of Malfoy, Harry, but I'll support whatever decision you make. Just choose one."

"I won't let Voldemort force me into doing this, any more than I'd let him pick a battleground." Harry set his teacup down gently on the arm of his chair. "I've chosen, Draco, and for now I choose to remain nameless."

Regulus sighed. "Harry, as much as I would like you to have free choice, you cannot. If the bonds of being the legal heir to Black were not enough to stop the Heir-Call, then the line of protection I counted on doesn't work. The Light defended you. Will it do that forever? Will it do that if Voldemort tries the Heir-Call again at Midwinter, when both he and the wild Dark want you?" He paused, nibbling his lip. "You know that I would like you to become Harry Black. But I agree with my cousin. Choose the name you wish to have."

"And Professor Snape would like me to become Harry Snape." Harry cocked his eyebrows. "He has as good a claim as you two do. He's my father."

Snape said nothing. He didn't need to, though. Harry could see the agreement and dissatisfaction with Harry's proposed solution moving in his dark eyes.

"And that's one reason why I won't choose," Harry continued. "Not until I have a distinct preference that I can argue for and defend." _Which might be never. I enjoy being Harry, forcing people to view me without a convenient name to stamp on my forehead. _"I don't want to cause competitions or resentment between you three. And, if I chose too quickly and without thought, my brother might wonder, justifiably, why I couldn't remain a Potter."

"Well, of _course_ you couldn't remain a _Potter_," Draco said, disgust in every syllable.

Harry smiled and stood, stretching his arms over his head. Snape and Regulus both stood at once, as if he would fall. Harry rolled his eyes. His brain didn't hurt, and the pressure around his throat had faded with the effects of one of Snape's potions and the warm tea. He would tell them if he was hurting, now. That was one thing they'd earned by no preemptive scolding.

"I'm not taking a name," he said pleasantly. "Not right now. I do thank you for offering, but I won't."

He swept out of Snape's offices, with Draco trailing behind him. He knew he'd won the fight because he was the least desperate. The rest of them were more interested in Voldemort's threat than he was. It had come once, and he'd survived it thanks to his connection to his brother. He could survive it again, especially because he now knew the signs.

"Harry."

He looked over his shoulder. Draco's face had taken on a thoughtful expression it hadn't worn since he heard about the attack. Harry nodded to him, and waited for what he would say.

"Part of it is about politics, too, isn't it?" Draco cocked his head. "And not just us, or whether we'd resent someone else whose name you took. Not that I would," he added haughtily. Harry ducked his head in a swift nod of agreement, and to hide his smile. "If you become Harry Malfoy, the Malfoys are suddenly elevated to a position of acclaim and grace that my father's actions lost for us. Add Snape, and suddenly Professor Snape is an important political figure. And if you're Harry Black, then you're making claim to the Blacks' heritage of glory and madness."

"Very good," said Harry, and Draco blushed and even gave a little wriggle at his praise. Harry had to raise a hand in front of his mouth to cover his smile this time. In the small things, Draco was so easy to please. "Yes, that's another reason, but it's not as important as my wanting to have the choice. I'm already juggling several political balls." He sighed as he thought about the story that had appeared in the _Daily Prophet_ that morning. Rita Skeeter had managed to ferret out the story about Squibs' Association, and though of course she put a flattering spin on it, the _Daily Prophet_ was already printing letters claiming that Harry never should drain anyone's magic but an enemy's. "I don't need my enemies suddenly thinking that one group of my allies is more important to me than the rest."

"Would you consider Malfoy?"

And then there were some things with Draco that weren't so simple. Sometimes he did distrust what Harry said on the surface, and wanted to hear them over again. Harry turned to face him, reaching out to grip his shoulders. He let his fingers stroke reassuringly over cloth and skin as he stared into his partner's eyes.

"I promise I'm doing that," he said. "It doesn't mean I'll choose it, but it's one of my top three choices." He watched Draco preen, then added, "Though sometimes I think I should choose Opalline, and then I would have an excuse not to fight."

Draco scowled at him. "Don't even joke about that, Harry," he said, putting out a hand, gripping the back of Harry's robe, and pulling him tightly against him. "We need you in the war. The war needs you."

Harry rolled his eyes, safely out of sight, and put his head down on Draco's shoulder. _The one thing I'm not going to forget is that._

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

"This is still just an experiment," Neville said as he put down the potted lily gently on the floor of the tunnel. "It doesn't mean that they'll work, you know. We have to test them."

"That you managed this at all is wonderful," said Connor, and watched in a little wonder as Neville swelled with pride. _Is just speaking the truth enough to get people to behave that way? Well, truth and flattering lies, I suppose. Harry would use that line even if Neville's plants were useless. _"Let's see what they can do."

They had two rows of the potted lilies, tall flowers with faint golden spots on their white petals, lining either wall of the escape tunnel out of Hogwarts that Parvati's spot of light had discovered. Neville set the last one down and stepped over to join Connor at the far end of the tunnel, towards the hole that led beyond the Forbidden Forest. At the other end, Peter waved to them.

"Here I am, just a regular Death Eater walking through the tunnel, not planning mayhem at all…" Peter sang under his breath as he began to walk between the rows of lilies.

He passed several without incident. Connor frowned, and avoided glancing at Neville. Maybe this wouldn't work after all.

But then one of the lilies quivered like a tuning fork, and the ripples and vibrations spread from flower to flower. By the time Peter reached the middle of the row, the lilies leaned towards him, their petals spread wide, their golden "tongues" writhing as if to catch his scent.

Then two of them reached out, and curled about his limbs with uncompromising strength. Peter made as if to reach for his wand, and the lilies tightened. Then the rest of them lunged.

There was a complicated moment when Connor had considerable difficulty in seeing what was happening. It ended with Peter on his back several inches above the floor, tendrils turning his arms and legs into a mass of green, lily petals locked on his face and attempting to suck his breath out.

"They work," Neville whispered in wonder.

"They do," Connor pointed out, "and now someone's got to stop them from hurting Peter."

Neville started, then clapped his hands. The lilies slowly lowered Peter to the floor and uncoiled from him, though many of them swayed as if asking Neville if he were _sure_ about doing this. Peter took a deep gasp for breath and sat up, rolling back his left sleeve. Connor winced. He was bleeding from a gash near the Dark Mark, which had triggered the lilies into attacking.

"Oh, Professor Pettigrew, I'm so sorry—" Neville began in horrified tones.

"It's quite all right, Longbottom." Peter's voice was firm as he touched the wound with his wand and murmured _Integro_. Most of the bleeding slowed, though Connor knew he would need to visit Madam Pomfrey to have it healed completely. "Professor Snape and I will just have to remember that we can't possibly take this route out of the castle." He smiled and stood up. "Of course, if an attack does happen at Hogwarts, we'll probably leave another way in any case, since we'll be fighting."

"And any student can take this tunnel." Connor eyed the lilies. "How often do they need to be watered, Neville?"

"Not at all," said Neville proudly, as the lilies nodded and swayed towards the sound of his voice. "They _grew up _on water. They've drunk enough for a year of vigilance. They'll keep watch until next year, now."

Connor smiled and waved his wand to begin casting Disillusionment Charms on the plants. It seemed their defense for this section of the castle was complete.

They met Fred and George in the middle of another corridor, the one that led from Ravenclaw Tower down towards the major escape tunnel. The twins were standing, one above the other, on a broad section of the half-ramp, half-stair that was meant to insure the students didn't have room to lag, and arguing hotly with one another.

"—couldn't work, because we can't adapt—"

"To all Houses? Of course we can. Stop being such a—"

"Disbeliever? Sometimes, one must take you to task, dear brother—"

"Brother of mine, who doesn't understand the simplest thing about jokes—"

"Fred? George?" By the speed with which their heads turned towards him, Connor thought he knew who was who. He shook his head in private amusement. He'd thought the twins would have finished arranging their traps for potential Death Eaters already. "What's wrong?"

The twins pointed at each other. "He," said Fred, "wants to set up tricks that will track students by the House crest on their robes. _He_ doesn't understand that we would have to arrange four different layers of spells, one for each House. That's too—"

"Much?" George leaned forward and pointed at Fred a little harder, as if that would convince Connor of his rightness. "_I_ say that we can do it easily, use the same spell for every House at Hogwarts. But he won't believe me. Disbeliever."

"Idiot."

"Moron."

"Imbecile."

"Skeptic."

Connor hastily intervened; he'd been witness to several arguments like this in the Burrow, and he knew they could go on for hours. "Well, we have House crests." He touched the Gryffindor crest on his own robes. "Why doesn't George use the spell that he thinks will detect students from all Houses, not making it specific to Gryffindor, and we can test it?"

George leaned forward, seized his hand, and pumped it brutally. "You are a brilliant man, Connor Potter, sir," he said, in an uncannily good imitation of a house elf. "George Weasley is honored to work for Connor Potter sir."

Connor coughed, feeling his cheeks flush. _Good thing we didn't have any house elves by the time Harry and I were born. I couldn't have commanded them anyway._ "Yes. Well. What's the incantation?"

George straightened and cleared his throat as though performing for a bigger audience than his brother, Connor, Neville, and the very amused Head of Gryffindor. "_Aediculae de Hogwarts protego!_"

A colored smoke left his wand and sauntered through the corridor. Squinting, Connor could make out that the smoke was purple, changing to blue. It snapped abruptly into taut lines along the walls, and clung there, so faint that Connor needed a strong _Lumos_ charm just to see where it had gone.

He moved cautiously forward.

The smoke didn't react. Connor walked the length of the corridor, to the foot of the tunnel that began the steep climb to Ravenclaw Tower, and came back, then had Neville do the same thing. No reaction. Connor glanced uneasily at George. "Is it supposed to do that?"

"Of course," said George. "Now watch." He took something from his pocket and fixed it to his robes with a few whispered words. Peter rolled his eyes.

"Do I want to know how you got a Slytherin House crest?" he asked.

"No, sir." George gave him an angelic smile. "I'm sure it would only distress a genial old man like yourself." He turned and strutted up the hall, his head lifted and a sneer on his lips. Connor bit his own lips to keep from laughing. He couldn't be _sure_ that George was mimicking Draco—there were other Slytherins who walked the same way—but it would add to the authenticity of the illusion if he were.

Once again, he passed through the corridor without being stopped. By then, though, Fred had his arms crossed and was shaking his head smugly. "Of course you think that the spell works, dear brother," he said. "Having it do nothing is the prime requirement for being able to claim genius with no hard work."

George grinned ferally, and Connor saw, a moment before Fred, how he'd been smarter than his twin for once. "That's why we need someone who's not wearing a House crest at all to test it," said George, and then dragged his twin forward and down half the corridor before he could react.

At once, the glittering bars of a cage grew around Fred. Then they flipped him neatly upside down and hung him by his heels, with his robes dangling past his face. A smoking brand crept out of the wall towards his flank, as if it were going to burn a pattern into his skin.

Fred yelped and wriggled. George was laughing so hard that it was up to Peter to take his out his wand and say firmly, "_Finite Incantatem._"

Fred dropped to the ground, and spent a few moments wiping at his face and robes. George had fallen to the ground, laughing still. The brand disappeared back into the wall, and Connor heard the vigilant hum of the spell.

"I _will_ get you back."

Fred was giving George the evil eye. George winked at him and sprang to his feet.

"Of course you will, brother mine," he said. "But at least you aren't a skeptic any more."

"You're still an idiot."

"Moron."

"Imbecile."

Connor rolled his eyes and left them to it.

SSSSSSSSS

Henrietta had decided it would be a good idea to take a walk. If she carried two pasties with her from the kitchens, and one was made of blueberries and one of raspberries, that did not mean anything. They steamed gently in her pocket, and were companions while she moved.

She went into the Forbidden Forest, watching as the branches arched overhead to frame a sky gone blue with one of the last fair days they would have before winter truly descended. Now and then ice glittered from a sheltered nook, but the snow that had fallen four days ago had failed to establish a lasting hold. The main presence in the Forest was the leaves that rustled and eddied around her, stirred by her robes and sometimes her spells into swirling patterns of color.

She had thought that might make it easier for him to find her. And it did. Halfway through a complicated dance of gold and orange, she saw him leaning against a tree, staring at her with dark eyes.

"Greetings, Evan," Henrietta said, then made the leaves dance through her widespread arms. She took out the blueberry pasty, hefted it in her hand for a moment, and tossed it towards him. He caught it handily and bit into it, never taking his eyes from her the while.

"I know what you are doing," he said.

"Good." Henrietta made the leaves settle on her head like a crown, and smiled at him. "This would have been boring if you didn't. You know that I enjoy enemies who can challenge me."

He licked his fingers as he finished his pasty, and then cocked his head. "Blueberries? That says that you are sorry for me, Henrietta, that you expect me to die. You only enjoy challenges you can win."

She shrugged gaily. It was not her fault that Evan Rosier did not completely understand her, while she walked as close as anyone could to understanding the shadows of his madness. "I didn't know that I was going to win when I held you down and raped you, the night you came to 'convince' me to join the Death Eaters. I only knew that you excited me more than anyone I'd ever known, and I wanted to fuck you."

His eyes had darkened further with the mention of the rape. Henrietta breathed softly, watching him, then shook her hair and let the leaves drift out of it, filtering down behind her with a crack-rustle.

"I will kill you," he said. "I need your help, and I will have it, and then I will kill you. But I will rape you first."

"You can't rape the willing, Evan." Henrietta took a step closer to him. "Do you want to feel how willing I am? My thighs are wet. They always are when I face you." The sky above them was very bright, and the grass around her stark with color. The ice glittered from its nooks.

His eyes stared at her. Henrietta understood him, and waited.

"There is a task that someone has asked me to help her with," Evan whispered. "Juicy targets, plump targets. Let me have the other pasty that you carry. I can smell it."

"Smell that, and not my arousal?" Henrietta took out the raspberry pasty and tossed it to him. "You're getting slow, Evan, very slow."

He ate a few bites, paused halfway through, and said, "That is the task that I will ask you to help with."

"I know, Evan," said Henrietta patiently. "I once told you that we were destined to meet and duel out our hatred, that enmity shared bound us to do more than taunt each other now and then. I will be happy to help you destroy these enemies, because it moves us one step closer to that moment."

Evan finished the pasty, delicately licked his fingers, and then handed her a brilliant smile. "Because you are the only one who has ever brought me sweets," he said, "I will warn you of this. Midwinter will be hard. And another blow falls soon, one that hands the victory to my Lord if you are not careful. At least, it hands him victory over the minds and hearts of the people."

Henrietta shrugged a little. "Harry will handle that. You and I have another dance, Evan, another way to walk." For a moment, she thought she heard a roll of thunder in the sky, but when she looked up, the heaven was as high and fair as ever.

In that moment, Evan crossed the distance between them and seized her by the throat, bearing her back against the trunk of an oak. Henrietta smiled at him, and tilted her head so that he could see the place where her pulse beat. That made the skin pull tight against his hold, and her vision wavered and burst into poison ivy as he held her hard enough to threaten the flow of her air. Beautiful, so beautiful, the sky was so beautiful and clear.

"I shall have you," Evan said.

Henrietta knew what he meant by that better than he thought she did. He would break her, he meant. That was what truly infuriated him about Henrietta, the reason that he was a pawn in her games instead of the other way around. Other people feared him, such as Hermione, the girl he had taken prisoner before he freed Durmstrang and sliced with the Severing Curse in the Midsummer battle. He could get inside them, leave his presence as a shadow in their heads. Henrietta had never been afraid of him, and _she_ was a shadow in _his_ head.

The hatred between them was something very nearly sacred, almost like the bond that Harry and Voldemort shared, but Evan did not want that. He did not want to be bound to anyone like that.

_Too bad. He is._

Henrietta leaned up and kissed him on the side of the mouth. He dropped her as if she had tried to poison him and reeled back, wiping at his face, spitting out foul insults.

Henrietta watched him with half-lowered eyelids, her breath coming fast. When she shifted, her thighs moved against each other with squelching sounds, and she felt the soft tingle of arousal building to a more insistent pressure in her belly. She would have liked to come now. But, of course, Evan would never consent to watch her do it, or to offer her assistance in the doing. There were limits to his sadism. Always, always, they concerned her.

She stood straight and met his eyes. She could see the madness beyond the blueberry-darkness, the screaming pit that he had only escaped by a few steps. She could drive him into it, if she wanted.

She chose not to. Today.

"'Love is more sweet and comelier,'" she whispered, "'than a dove's throat strained out to sing.'"

She saw his eyes flash with rage and recognition. She had taken lines that he would have liked to say, and turned them back on him. She smiled, and advanced another step. He backed up.

"'Yea, though God hateth us, he knows that hardly in a little thing,'" she said, and Evan stumbled trying to get away from her, "'love faileth of the work it does till it grow ripe for gathering.'"

Evan jerked his head, bared his teeth, and vanished. Henrietta watched a scrap of pasty fall to the ground in his wake; he must have been holding it in his hand, but not tightly enough for it to follow him in the Apparition. She came to it, knelt down, and held her nose to it.

It was blueberry.

She murmured the final stanza to the piece of pasty, to the Forest, to the dancing leaves and the frozen ones.

"_I am grown blind with all these things: _

_It may be now she hath in sight _

_Some better knowledge; still there clings _

_The old question. Will not God do right?"_

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Lucius examined the letter in front of him with a faint smile. It was by an oversight that it had come to him. Doubtless, the wizards and witches who had written it had imagined the Mr. Malfoy in residence at Malfoy Manor to be Draco. And his son was supposed to come by in a few hours, to collect his post and have his weekly serious talk with Lucius, as though he imagined his father had any choice now but to follow both him and Harry with serious devotion.

This letter, though—

He had not known Draco's ambitions extended so widely.

He studied it again. It was from a group of Aurors in the American Ministry, who were indicating dissatisfaction with the American Minister's decisions in the past. One of them was a choice not to help Britain with its "small problems," including Voldemort and the broken Statute of Secrecy, but only one of them. Yes, they were interested in hearing more about the British _vates_ whom Draco thought they would have to deal with sooner or later anyway, considering all the magical creatures bound with webs in America, and perhaps getting on his good side now.

_Interesting. _

Lucius had already memorized all the pertinent information, including names and those details that might allow him to contact the American wizards again, and he knew he could feign his son's handwriting fairly well _if _necessary. Now he was pressing the letter carefully back into the envelope, and casting charms that would make it seem as if he had never opened the envelope at all.

Draco was doing what he had to do to raise the Malfoy name back to prestige and make the world a little more comfortable for both himself and Harry. That much, Lucius approved of. And, of course, Draco had evidently started this correspondence when Lucius had fled, and he had never thought that he would have to deal with his father again.

But he might be going about it the wrong way. The letter indicated that the American wizards were letting Draco's age influence them. They were trying to take him for what they wanted while ignoring his own demands. And while Lucius knew his son could resist such crude manipulations for the most part, he still might lose something that he didn't want to lose.

It was time for Lucius to intervene.

Not under false pretenses unless he had to, of course. He would tell the Americans who he was, and doubtless endure some abuse before they listened to him. But money spoke, and so did past power, and the assumed innocence of his crimes that his acquittal in the First War had won him. He was a Dark wizard, yes, but he was not so Dark as to be a willing servant of Voldemort, they might well think.

Lucius would play with them. Find out what they wanted with his son and the man who was essentially his Lord now. Coax them into revealing more than they had to Draco. Show them what a master player of the game was like, while at the same time maintaining the obsequious tone that most American wizards expected of most British.

It was, after all, only self-defense.


	57. The Hammer Falls

**Cliffhanger warning.**

**Chapter Forty-Four: The Hammer Falls**

Aurora yawned, and pushed a hand against her mouth, trying to conceal it. Cupressus looked up at her at once, though, shaking his head. "You have an appointment to go to, my lady," he said. "With the contact that you are so reluctant to inform me of, and then to your bed."

"I wish I could stay." Aurora sat back and stared at the paperwork spread around her. Cupressus's plan to recover respect for the Ministry was multi-tiered, and she knew she hadn't even finished reading every stage of it yet, let alone making all the comments and contributions she could. "I'd like to—"

"Yes, I know you would," Cupressus interrupted. "But your contributions would be limited by the level of your weariness. I would prefer that that not be the case. I would prefer that you approach something this important with open eyes and a fresh mind."

Aurora smiled. Cupressus had not lost the side of him that loved to command others at every opportunity. "I'll remember that," she said, and stood. "Good night for now, sir."

Cupressus made a humming sound under his breath and bent over the paperwork again, then grabbed a quill to scribble a note next to a diagram. Aurora suspected he would remain here long after she'd gone to bed herself, adjusting his own plans and then attempting to blend the new ideas with the old.

She went quietly towards the small closet where she and Feldspar had agreed to meet that night, reviewing the plans in her own mind. She had to admit she couldn't see a flaw in them. Their coup would be a slow one, timed to allow the Light and the Acting Minister as much dignity as possible. Besides, their more violent actions were restricted by the oaths they'd sworn to the Order of the Firebird. So it would take some months, perhaps as much as half a year.

_It doesn't matter, though, _Aurora reminded herself. _What really matters is that we'll have recovered the Ministry as a place where ordinary wizards can be proud to stand, and where we can hover between two sides of the war without looking like cowards. That dream is worth any amount of sacrifices._

She had never thought she would feel so close to Minister Scrimgeour, she mused as she arrived at the closet where Feldspar should already be, unless the Aurors had managed to stop him this time. She could see the import of his dream now, in a way she might not have managed to if he were still alive to carry it. Sometimes the dreamer obscured the dream. Aurora believed she might have been even more sympathetic to the concept and the task of the _vates_ if it didn't belong to the man who had killed her children.

But Minister Scrimgeour had died and left his dream behind. And Aurora had been able to pick it up, turn it around, and decide that, after all, it was worth protecting and preserving and dreaming. She felt it around her shoulders now like a heavy, warm cloak as she opened the door.

She started when she saw two figures in the darkness, and not just one. "Feldspar?" she whispered.

He straightened and nodded to her. His movements were more jerky than usual, but Aurora supposed that might have something to do with the triumph in his eyes. And if the person at his feet was who she thought it was, Aurora could see why. It _looked_ like Indigena Yaxley, wrapped in her own vines.

"What happened?" Aurora whispered.

"She finally took it a step too far," Feldspar replied harshly, his chest heaving with emotion. "She was one of those who tortured me at her Lord's command. And he had taken to leaving her alone with me while she did it, because he trusted her so much.

"I thought she would kill me. She pressed so hard. She would cast healing spells when necessary to reverse the worst of the damage and revive me, but then she would start again." He shook his head, and Aurora heard his hair rustle. "It built up in the middle of my chest, that anger, until I thought it would burst. And it did." He looked down at Indigena's wrapped body and nodded in satisfaction. "So I managed to take her, and I brought her here. I thought you'd want her more than you'd want me to remain in Voldemort's service."

"She killed the Minister," Aurora mused, staring down at Indigena. "And of course we couldn't catch her and execute her to show our people that we took that crime seriously. We can now. Thank you." She moved closer, enchanted by the way that the vines wrapped Indigena like braided ropes.

One of them writhed around her neck before she realized what was happening.

Indigena opened her eyes and sat up with a sigh and a stretch. The vines binding her retracted into her skin; they'd been tendrils, Aurora saw, fully under her control. She tried to turn to Feldspar for help, only to see him collapsing into a mixture of leaves, bushy roots, and half-spoiled fruit.

"He was a replica, born of one of my plants," said Indigena. "Really, you ought to communicate with your supposed allies more. Then you would have known that Feldspar Yaxley died in the assault on Hogwarts." She moved closer to Aurora, one vine catching her chin and tilting her head back. "You are cleverer than I thought you would be, far more the heir to Scrimgeour's vision of things than I ever believed. I thought you would be an easy pawn, and then things changed." Indigena shrugged. "It is a pity that I have to kill you."

Aurora struggled madly, but she might as well be pressing against iron chains for all that the vines gave. She sought for words that would allow her to bargain, to keep her life. "How did you get in here?" she blurted, at last.

"The wards are still not set up to detect plant magic, of course," said Indigena. "Too few wizards who know it. Wrap my wand with leaves, and I can walk through the wards. Wrap myself with vines, and it hardly registered. And, of course, it helped that I did know all the routes that Feldspar so cleverly mapped through the wards and the Aurors, since I was the source of them." She reached out and flicked a lock of Aurora's hair back from her forehead. Her leaf-shadowed face was vaguely regretful, Aurora saw. "If it helps, I _am_ sorry that I have to do this. I asked my Lord if I could spare your life and merely make you a victim of another kind, but he said no." Indigena shrugged, and Aurora felt the vines tighten. "So to death we must go. I promise, Madam Whitestag, it will be gentle."

For a moment, outrage, indignation, and hatred bubbled wildly in Aurora's chest. She could not believe this was happening to her, that she was dying. It _must_ be a dream. She had fallen asleep on her way to the meeting with Feldspar, and this was her reward for neglecting her duties, a nightmare.

But the vines tightened, and her breath began to come raggedly, and she knew she had a choice. She could go to her death much as Scrimgeour had, denying it was happening, unable to react in time to do anything worthwhile.

Or she could use the moment of her death to make a difference.

She let her head fall back, and directed all her thoughts fiercely and endlessly to what she wanted. The moment of one's death was useful, if pitted against one's enemies in the right way. She was dying anyway. If she chose to die a willing sacrifice, then she might still have a part to play in the long drama of war and blood that would follow her death.

Her last thoughts were, therefore, of Indigena.

SSSSSSSS

Indigena watched calmly as Aurora Whitestag's face grew blue, and shook her head as the woman stopped breathing. "I wonder why this is part of my fate, to continually kill people I admire," she remarked to the limp body, as her darlings started to unwind from it. "I thought Minister Scrimgeour would be the last of those, but instead you had to develop a conscience and a will and start acting effectively. Was that really necessary?"

"Yes. It was."

Indigena started badly. The voice was Aurora's, though it sounded distant and cold, as though she were speaking down a tunnel filled with wind. She took a step away, eyeing the corners. Had she killed someone wearing a glamour, or Polyjuiced to look like the Acting Minister's second-in-command? That would reveal a level of deviousness in Aurora she hadn't known was there, but then, Whitestag had surprised her several times since the beginning of this plan with Feldspar.

She understood a moment later, as she watched silver liquid collect around the body, glowing vividly, like mercury. The drops ran together, and bubbled up into the shape of a woman with long hair. Her face was visibly younger than that of the Aurora Indigena had killed. And she looked fiercer, too.

Indigena frowned. "You just had to come back as a ghost, didn't you?" she demanded.

The newborn ghost opened her eyes and gave Indigena a feral smile. "Yes," she said. "I dedicated my last moments to wishing for that. And I was thinking of you, too." She leaned forward, raising an eyebrow, and sending a whisk of cold breath across Indigena's face that made the leaves beneath her skin tangle together trying to get away. "That means that I'll be here looking for some way to defeat you, Indigena Yaxley. I hope you enjoy the enemy you've created." And she turned away, tattering and drifting through the far wall as scraps of mist.

She left Indigena to blink, for a moment. But no strike of vengeance immediately came. It seemed that the ghost was content to wait for a better moment.

_I didn't plan that. I wish I had known something like that might happen. But, changed as she seemed, I wouldn't have pegged Aurora Whitestag as having the amount of self-control and foresight necessary to use the moment of her death like that. _

She shook herself like a dog shaking off water and moved past the moment. The first major task her Lord had asked of her had been accomplished. Aurora lay motionless on the floor, and if she wasn't quite dead, her ghost at least seemed uninterested in interfering further with this task.

Now for the second part.

Indigena closed her eyes and lifted her arms, a soft, vibrating song traveling through her lips. She knew, though she could not see it, that Feldspar's body would be vibrating like a whirlpool, the tendrils and plants she'd stored there climbing out of him and reaching for the walls. Roots writhed, digging into stone and metal and finding ways through them. She would bind the whole of the Ministry into a cage of roots before she was done, vines blocking the way out, flowers breathing calming fragrances into the air, a garden coaxing people to stay at their desks.

When that was done, she would call to her Lord and let him know.

The caged Ministry would become a cage of Squibs as her Lord drank and drained their magic, and grew immensely more powerful. Indigena shivered a little, to think of how strong he would be when all this was done.

SSSSSSSSSSS

Cupressus heard it as a shrill, nagging whine in his left ear, the cry of a wounded unicorn foal. He sat up and gave Aurora a moment of silence. The ward was one he had cast to warn him if she died suddenly.

Then he was up and moving. He doubted that Erasmus had killed her in a fit of temper. That made it far more likely that Voldemort and his people had created another entrance into the Ministry. And in that case, he knew what he had to do. He _always_ knew what he had to do. It was other people who ruined the pattern by moving about in ways that pawns, and even knights and kings and queens, were not supposed to move.

He opened the door, and something grabbed the knob and tried to slam it shut again. Cupressus dragged hard, though, and so managed to see the writhing vine before more tendrils joined it and yanked the door from its hands.

Cupressus nodded. He had planned even for this. What the Dark had tried once, they might try again. They had sent the vine-born Yaxley to murder the Minister. That meant they might do it again. Cupressus did not think that Erasmus was their main target, or they wouldn't have bothered to murder Aurora, but she was here, the Yaxley, Voldemort's running hound.

So he gathered himself, sinking carefully into his soul, where golden Light ran in streams like water. There were many Light spells he could not use at this point of the year, when the sun was on the other side of the earth, but he had made a point to study those that relied on inner Light, so that he would never be helpless. Evil could strike in any month.

At last, he opened his eyes, aimed his wand at the door, and murmured, "_Caminus intimus_."

The fire soared forth from his heart, powered by his own heat, his conception of the inner forge that the spell literally called on. Cupressus moved forward, gesturing the fire back and forth between his wand and heart, singing under his breath. The heat warmed and centered him, and reminded him of what he was: a Light wizard, opposing the Dark. That he had to do it through subterfuge and without the Minister's cooperation was a pity, but needs must when the Dark arose.

The door burst into flames. The vines beyond it lashed forward, trying to get through the fire, and dripping dew-cold liquids from their stalks that were meant to quell the heat. Cupressus laughed. The vines were mighty, but they could not quench the fire without killing him, and they could not kill him unless they quenched the fire.

He raised his wand. The fire danced to meet him, gladly roaring. The vines withered and blackened in the heat, and then fell, and Cupressus's passage to the corridor beyond was clear.

Clad in a cloak of brilliant fire, Cupressus strolled towards the Minister's office. He knew his duty. It was not what he _wanted_ to do—he wanted to find Aurora's body and give her a proper burial; he wanted to simply leave and go home, from the place where he could more easily command his people—but it was what was needed. The Ministry would fall this day as a symbol of hope. The Acting Minister must escape, so that he could be the symbol in its place.

No, Erasmus was not the choice he would have made. But he was the choice that _had_ been made. Cupressus would cooperate with him and use him as a figurehead to help them win this war.

He burned the vines that were trying to get through the Minister's door, and stepped over the body of an Auror who had fallen fighting them. A giant flower gusted fragrance at him, a visible cloud of pink gas, which was probably meant to calm and soothe him. Cupressus closed his eyes, and the flames crossed in front of him like dancing scimitars, gesturing the fragrance away. Cupressus snorted. _Dark wizards are pitiful when they think they can take a Light wizard with simple tricks._

He broke through the Minister's door, and then stood in front of Erasmus's desk. Erasmus was sinking back, his eyes on the walls, where roots gleamed through star-like cracks. He jerked his head around when he heard Cupressus enter, and broke into a fit of shivering.

"Are you with them?" he whispered.

Cupressus rolled his eyes. "The day I join the Dark is the day I commit suicide," he answered. "Quite literally. The vows I have sworn to the Light would kill me before I could accomplish anything for the Dark." He cast a deep sleeping enchantment on the Acting Minister before he could say anything more. Yes, he had to be safe, so that he could be their "leader" when this fall was done, but he would only cause trouble if he were awake, getting in the way and trying to give orders when Cupressus was the one who had to do that. Cupressus would make sure that he was safe, but listening to him was out of the question, as it had been for months.

He strode around the desk, scooped up Erasmus in his arms, and turned around to consider the vines that entwined the door. They were thickening, small tendrils braiding together, all of them slick now with water. They would choke him if he tried to get back through them, and they might succeed.

_I can save no one else. Aurora is already dead, and I must get my most important burden to safety. _Cupressus hefted Erasmus and snorted. _That a day would come in Britain when a man like this is the most important burden!_

He touched the golden torque around his neck, which most of the time was hidden under the collar of his robe. It gleamed, and then the tug of a Portkey hooked under his navel and dragged him and Erasmus back to his house.

Vines and dew and shattered door and cracking stone walls vanished, and Cupressus stood in his receiving room, blazing. He calmed the inner fire with a word, then laid Erasmus down on the floor and checked him for burns. Granted, burns would have meant Cupressus was losing control of his magic, which would have been a bad sign, but still, he should check. Sometimes such flames conveyed any hidden anger that the caster felt, as he felt towards Erasmus, no matter how much the wizard tried to hold back on the fire.

"Cupressus?"

He glanced up. Artemis stood in the door of the receiving room, her hands clasped to her mouth.

"The Dark Snake has attacked the Ministry," said Cupressus calmly. "I have the Acting Minister. But he will not be awakening for some time. He swallowed too much smoke," he added.

Artemis dropped her hands and gave him a smile that said she knew exactly where the "smoke" had come from. Then she came forward a step. "What do you need to me to do?" she asked. "Since I assume you will be occupied in trying to make the Shadow Lord listen to you."

Cupressus nodded. "Shadow Lord" was the name that the Light families outside Harry's web had taken to calling him, since he was a Lord-level wizard no matter how much he tried to deny it, and he was in the shadow of evil without having quite succumbed to darkness. There was still hope of Light finding him, if he Declared the way he was supposed to. "Light the beacons," he said. "We will have to have a meeting before they accept it fully, of course, but the beacons are important."

His wife nodded, and left the room with a sharp swirl of her skirts.

Cupressus called an elf to take the Acting Minister to bed. He himself would contact the Hogwarts hospital wing and try to make Harry listen to him. Artemis would be lighting the beacons that would blaze up and down the coast of Ireland, and even be visible to the coast of Scotland, if there were still people there who would listen to them and heed the fires' message.

When those flames burned, the families who followed the Light were to put aside all petty, personal enmities, and all political commitments they might have, and all ambitions that had nothing to do with the wider world, and answer their ultimate allegiance, to their Declaration. Apollonis was one of only three families that had the right to light them, and command the others to fall in. In this case, Voldemort's attack and the Ministry's fall meant that such a moment had come.

They were the enemies of the Dark Lord, more than they were the enemies of Harry. No, Harry's undeclared status was not ideal, and Cupressus would be watching for the moment when Harry tried to take advantage of them. But they needed to ally with him to defeat Voldemort, to bring down the Dark Snake.

There would be arguments later. Cupressus knew that. The family heads would insist on getting together and drafting a formal document of alliance. And Erasmus would undoubtedly be a hindrance in the process, yet one they could not do without, not if they hoped to command the allegiance of the undeclared.

For now, though, there were no arguments. The beacons were a call to battle, and no Light wizard worth his flames would deny them.

Cupressus knelt in front of the fireplace and cast a handful of Floo powder into the flames, calling, "Hogwarts hospital wing!"

SSSSSSSSS

Indigena cursed as she felt Cupressus Portkey out. Yes, only one or two wizards escaping her net was not a large number, but she would have preferred that almost anyone escape save an old, experienced, canny Light wizard. Indigena had faced and fought the breed before. They inevitably caused trouble.

Then she shook her head, and closed her eyes to check the state of the rest of the Ministry. What she found satisfied her. Vines tied people to their desks. Flowers dangled in front of their faces, breathing a deep fragrance on them and lulling them almost into dreams, or at least the borderland on the edge of sleep. Tendrils held fingers motionless just short of wands. A few other Light wizards had tried spells of fire against her darlings, but they did not have the deep dedication necessary to keep raising the flames even against the dew Indigena had impregnated her plants with. They were captives, and that meant they were birds ripe for the plucking, meals for her Lord and his _absorbere_ gift.

Indigena touched her Mark, and felt the pain smoldering at the bottom of it grow, until she knew her Lord understood her message. His Ministry was ready for him.

She opened her eyes, and smiled.

And then something at the bottom of the Ministry, something that could resist magic, said _No_ in a decisive voice.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

"Harry!"

Harry jerked his head up as Madam Pomfrey, of all people, came running into the library, her hair flying around her, her wand wildly waving. She ignored Madam Pince's glare, and Draco's, and dragged him to his feet with one hand.

"The Ministry has fallen," she hissed into his ear. "Cupressus Apollonis is calling for you in the hospital wing fireplace, offering to tell you any details you want to know." She bent even closer to Harry's ear. "He did say that the Acting Minister is safe, but that Aurora Whitestag is dead."

Harry felt a shock race through him as strong as the fall of the Ministry had probably caused Cupressus, but he didn't allow himself to be slowed by it. He braced his hands on the table and levered himself to his feet, shaking off the grip on his arm. He could get himself to the hospital wing faster than Madam Pomfrey could. Looking back, he collected Draco with his eyes and led him along, while he asked the matron for more information. "How many people dead?"

Madam Pomfrey frowned and shook her head. "That, I don't know. Mr. Apollonis didn't seem to think many people had died, but I didn't know why."

Harry nodded, and simply _ran_. There were a few moving staircases that tried to get in the way, and slow him down; he simply used his magic to force them back into position so he, Draco, and the matron could jump up them. He felt a slight current of disgruntlement and discontent from Hogwarts when he did that, but the school would recover. The people who might be dying in the Ministry right now, or joining the ranks of Voldemort's captives, would not.

He raced into the hospital wing, and saw Cupressus's face hovering in the green flames. He dropped to his knees before him, so as to be sure of missing no nuance of expression. "How many are dead?" he asked.

"It is impossible to tell." Cupressus's voice was absolutely calm. "From what I could tell, Yaxley's vines were not meant to kill, but to take and hold prisoner. If I had to guess, I would say she was taking hostages, or captives so that her Lord could drain their magic."

Harry closed his eyes and nodded. If Indigena could turn the Ministry into a cage, then Voldemort would gain far more magic than he could from isolated disappearances and captures by the wild Dark. And even if Harry got there in time to save lives, he might not get there in time to save the captives' magic.

He pushed the thought ahead. He had to act quickly now, but it would not do to rush into a trap. "What else can you tell me?" he asked, forcing his eyes open.

"Dedicated Light-fire destroys her vines," said Cupressus promptly. "Take someone strongly devoted to the Light with you, someone who can use spells that do not depend on the sun." Harry nodded, thinking of Peter and the Light spells he had showed them how to do during the period when the wild Dark was terrorizing the school. "And the beacons have been lighted up and down the coast of Ireland, _vates_, by my wife. The Light families of the British Isles will know that a crisis has arisen which compels them to put aside their personal enmities and ally with you. They will doubtlessly argue later, and it will not be easy to convince them, but for now, we do not have a government, or a seat of government. This is a crisis."

Harry swallowed. He had not absorbed the full psychological consequences of the Ministry's fall, but if some people had panicked when Voldemort had proven that he was capable of breaking into Tullianum, it would be nothing compared to what actually happened now, with the Ministry itself breached.

"Yes, it is," he said, forcing his mind on track, to deal with what was in front of him and not what might lie beyond that. "Is there anything else that you can tell me?"

Cupressus shook his head. "I took the Acting Minister and Portkeyed out as soon as I could, so my observations were limited. I will say that simply appearing inside the Ministry strikes me as a bad idea. That is more likely to add the people who go on Voldemort's menu."

Harry raised a hand in acknowledgment. "And how soon will the Acting Minister awaken?"

The other wizard's eyes shone with innocence. "As soon as your plans, and ours, need him to awaken, and not before."

_At least he has a good sense of how useless Juniper is. _Harry nodded. "Then he should get some rest for now." He stood, his mind already whirling. He would have to approach the Ministry from the outside. He would need to take at least one strongly Light-devoted wizard with him, and probably more. Well, Moody was here, and Ron and Ginny. He did not know if he dared ask McGonagall, given how weak her heart was, but he would search among the other professors and students, and hope to find someone else both Light-devoted and strong enough to perform the spells.

"If you can wait for five hours, there will be a contingent of Light wizards in my home," Cupressus offered. "I will drop the wards so that you and your—Dark allies—may pass through." The distaste in his voice was clear, but it remained brisk. "They will be strong enough, all of them, to perform the Light and the fire spells that can rid you of Yaxley's vines."

"I do not think I can wait that long," Harry murmured. "But I will try to send you a message if I am still battling in that time, and I will welcome your assistance." He nodded to Cupressus again. "Is there anything else that you can think of to tell me?"

"No," said Cupressus. "We will concentrate on gathering Light wizards and setting up a provisional government, _vates_. This battle, no matter what the outcome, cannot be allowed to spell the end of the British Ministry."

"No, it cannot," Harry said, and the Floo connection ended. He turned to find Draco studying him intently.

"I hope that you're not thinking of rushing off to battle by yourself," he said.

"No," said Harry. "But I do need Light wizards with me, as well as Dark, and I need to think and decide what to do. It sounds as though Apparating into the Ministry won't work, and nor will approaching it from the outside without a plan."

He started from the hospital wing towards the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom to fetch Peter, his mind whirling.

_Approach from the outside. That would mean we have to appear in the alley outside the deserted telephone box. But how to get into the Ministry from there? The approach through the Atrium or the telephone box itself will probably be wreathed with Indigena's vines._

Well. There was one answer that Harry could count on, though he didn't think it would allow him to Apparate into the Ministry.

Carefully, he began to think of names and faces of people he had known who worked in the Ministry, some of whom still did. He began to imagine countless other innocents who might wait there now, destined to become either Squibs or corpses if Voldemort reached them, and probably both.

Even as Draco asked questions and he answered them, even as he opened the door of the Defense Against the Dark Arts room into the middle of a third-year class and summoned Peter with a glance and a jerk of his head, he was reaching into the darkness in the middle of his mind and stirring it.

When he went to battle this time, the only thing that might suffice to easily rid the Ministry of Indigena's vines was his deepest rage.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

They brought him gently, Sylvan Yaxley's arms closed around their Lord, supporting him and holding him so that his feet did not brush the ground. He would have said thanks for that if he were a creature of gratitude. But the Lord Voldemort was no one's creature but his own, and so he did not stop to thank them.

The blindness of Apparition seized him, and then the more relaxed blindness of some light and physical solidity. The snake around his waist still did not see perfectly. The Lord Voldemort did not care. He could make out the succulent, tempting meals of magic around him, and he opened his _absorbere_ gift and began to drain.

Already, he knew, he was the most powerful wizard in the world. With the magic he was eating now, he would become more powerful than that, a rearing, titanic force of magic that not even his heir could cope with.

In the meantime, because there was nothing wrong with his ears, he enjoyed the screams and shrieks of those suddenly rendered Squibs, and the rarer ones who realized what the disappearance of their magic would probably mean for Britain as a whole.

For the first time in a long time, laughter was rising up his throat. Let the little Light fires burn. Let the Stone in the Department of Mysteries prepare to resist him, and eat Indigena's vines when they came near it.

Let Harry come. Let even the third come.

They would find Lord Voldemort ready for them.


	58. Two Lords That Are Deathless

The title of this chapter comes from Swinburne's "By the North Sea": "For the land has two lords that are deathless:/ Death's self, and the sea."

**Cliffhanger warning. **

**Chapter Forty-Five: Two Lords That Are Deathless**

Indigena cursed under her breath as she sent yet another vine forward. Until today, she wouldn't have thought a creature existed that could disarm these vines so easily. They'd grown pincers, teeth that resembled the teeth of a sundew, dew that froze attackers in their tracks, and maws that projected magic. They should have captured any troublesome wizards and witches who had managed to stay free so far.

But they didn't manage to capture the Stone. Instead, what happened involved the vine putting its maw around the door to the Department of Mysteries, and the Stone snipping it off.

The voice burbled and laughed at her, sometimes telling her that plant magic was interesting but limited, sometimes asking her questions about how she bred the vines that Indigena didn't intend to answer. It showed no effort. That made Indigena angrier than just about anything else.

_I bred these vines, I wound my magic in them, and now they cannot take something so simple as—_

As a sentient piece of rock immune to magic, if the rumors Indigena had heard of the Stone were true. Well, given that set of conditions, she supposed she could not be angry about not immediately triumphing.

She closed her eyes and tried to scout through her plants that trailed through the levels just above the Department of Mysteries. It was difficult, however. Beyond a certain place, her tendrils simply withered, and the flowers that served as large blinking eyes closed as if in the face of immense cold and refused to open again. She supposed that was the Stone's way of defending its home.

It was an _annoying_ way. Indigena was certain there were wizards in the Department of Mysteries with the Stone, wizards probably practiced in magic and rich with the knowledge of ancient artifacts, not to mention the artifacts themselves. Her Lord would want them. He would expect her to have the doors open already by the time he descended that far, and he might turn to punishing her if she did not succeed. Indigena was fairly certain that he would be able to do _anything_ he wanted, after he had swallowed most of the magic in the Ministry.

_Oh, yes, he is here. I never thought he was very interesting, but perhaps I was wrong. And he is destroying the Ministry? That is interesting._

And Indigena found herself shouldered aside very efficiently, as the Stone's consciousness lifted past her and in the direction of her Lord, filled with curiosity and intense interest.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

"Can you do this, then?" Harry stared into Moon's eyes, waiting for some sign that the pale centaur was backing down, but he received none. Instead, Moon scraped a forehoof on the ground and nodded.

"Yes. We are less vulnerable to human magic than humans are. And they will not be expecting an attack from that direction." Moon put up a hand, though Harry hadn't made a motion to interrupt. "We are less vulnerable to human magic, but we are not immune. We will scout for you, and then return to you the moment we have learned the extent of what we can."

Harry nodded. That was more than fair—in fact, it was more than he would have asked of the centaurs, but Moon had insisted on offering. Harry stepped out of the way as he watched Moon use hand signals that meant nothing to Harry, but which made the herd nod and scatter in several directions. The centaurs Moon had first sent off were already coming back, clutching long spears, scythes, and clubs.

Harry had taken along several centaurs when he attacked the Ministry during his rebellion to free Hawthorn and the others from Tullianum. Though it was not widely understood how, because wizards rarely studied the magic of other species, centaurs could appear in places named after them—such as the Centaur Office in the Ministry, which had supposedly been set aside in case any of them forsook their pride enough to come and talk to Ministry officials. They would appear in the Office, scout in what ways they could, and then return to the Centaur Glade in the middle of the Forest, their most protected area.

Moon had offered it when Harry came to him, even before he could ask. That eased Harry's fears about sending them into such a dangerous situation, a little. But he didn't know what would happen to them when they arrived, if Voldemort would succeed in draining them of their magic, if Indigena would kill them with her vines. He reminded himself that none of them might return, and shivered.

A hand clasped his shoulder. "I know that look on your face," Connor's voice said into his ear. "You're worrying about what's going to happen when they get there. Don't be so concerned about them, Harry. They want to help, and they're going to. They know the risks."

Harry turned around and managed to smile at his twin. He could feel a muscle jumping in his cheek, though, and suspected it wasn't a very calm smile. "I know that," he murmured.

"You haven't accepted that people might die, yet." Connor was holding both his shoulders now, and looking at him with a mixture of affection and exasperation. "It _happens_ in war, Harry. You know that. We have to fight anyway, despite the fact that we might die, and they want to fight for you." He gave Harry a slight shake. "Don't devalue their loyalty by worrying so much."

"I will never accept that people _have_ to die," said Harry quietly, and stepped out from under Connor's hands. "If I do that, my heart has been hardened, and I would not want that."

He glanced one more time at the wizards and witches gathered around him. Snape and Draco were there, of course; Harry doubted that he could have kept them away. He had attempted to call Kanerva, but had received a sighing answer only from the wind. She might appear in the middle of the battle, for all Harry knew, but he could not count on her. And Jing-Xi was still in China.

The rest of the complement with him was Light, though. McGonagall had insisted on coming, and Madam Pomfrey, when asked for her professional opinion, had allowed that she was probably recovered enough to do so. Connor had the necessary power and dedication to the Light to perform the inner fire spells, at least since their birthday, and Ron, Ginny, Moody, Tonks, Hermione, Zacharias, Parvati, and Padma waited behind him, too. Harry had been hesitant about contacting Fred and George, since he knew Indigena waited on their battlefield, and he thought the twins' eagerness to get revenge on her for Percy might overpower their good sense. In the end, though, he'd called on them. Their narrow grins didn't reassure him, but at least they hadn't attempted to Apparate into the Ministry early. They stood whispering to one another instead, apparently arguing about what painful punishment they should inflict on Indigena.

Moon reared up in front of him, catching Harry's attention again. Harry met his eyes and nodded, once, as much of a vote of confidence as he could offer when he had no idea what the centaurs were walking into. The white centaur reared high, his pale hooves and tail flying.

Between one moment and the next, he vanished, and so did the ten centaurs gathered behind him, an assemblage of chestnut and palomino and black hides. Harry sighed and folded his hands beneath his chin to wait.

This time, the one who touched his shoulder was Draco, but he didn't try to speak any comforting words. That was at least part of the reason that Harry didn't try to shake this touch off.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

He was swollen, with such power.

He had never known that it was possible to drink all the magic around him. He had never tried it. The _absorbere_ gift had limits. After a certain point, it would shut and force the wizard who possessed it to digest what he had eaten. The Lord Voldemort knew that better than anyone. He had been the only one who possessed the gift for years, and then, when his heir had shared it and stretched it between them, he had neither liked it nor understood its full capabilities.

But it seemed that the gift could be strengthened with exercise, like any other muscle. The Mudblood children he had drained of their power before Sylvan and Oaken took them, pounded their flesh, and introduced it into the soul-pattern growing on the floor of his home had been that practice, he understood now. He drank, and he drank, and he rarely had to shut his mouth and concentrate on settling what he'd drunk. Magic was a liquid to him, a fresh lake after he had run panting across a desert. And his belly was limitless, even as his cruelty was, even as his power was.

He laughed aloud.

A voice said, _You are interesting._

The Lord Voldemort swung some of his attention in that direction. So swollen with magic was he that he could easily have two minds, if he wanted. One of them reached down to the eighth floor, the Atrium, and reaped the captives there of their magic; he had drained the seven floors above them. The other studied the presence that was creeping out of the Department of Mysteries, aiming for him.

It did not alarm him; he knew what it must be, since he had read his traitors' memories. Adalrico had been most eloquent in describing the Stone that had attacked Harry at Woodhouse, since he was the one who had utilized the memories to create his ward-eating stones. He knew powerful minds like this, did the Lord Voldemort. He had met his share of them, one of them lying at the foot of each Egyptian pyramid. They had been tricked into entering Earth long ago by wizards who served the pharaohs, and they resented it greatly. But they were also subject to magic, and could not hurt those who had bound them, only those who intruded into the tombs with the intent of robbing them.

This Stone was not subject to wizards, he understood at once, because his swiftness of intelligence was too great to be fooled. It had made wizards subject to it, those it called its Unspeakables. And it reached out to him with a child's curiosity, as if it could do the same thing now.

_A careless child has his fingers burned, _he thought, directing the words so the Stone could hear them, and then reached out with a flare of magic, gently roasting the personality that extended towards him. He heard a startled yelp from the Stone, and then the edge of its personality retracted. The Lord Voldemort snarled in satisfaction and turned back to draining magic.

He felt the tremble of an unfamiliar presence on the edge of his consciousness, and paused to watch. He snorted with amusement when he realized centaurs had appeared in the Ministry and trotted on the fourth floor, staring at the drapery of vines around them. Harry would have sent them ahead to scout. And he would trust their reports, of course, because he had not realized that such halfbreeds were only good enough to fight in situations where humans would not do.

The Lord Voldemort thought about killing them, but then he had a better idea. They should return to his heir and report that the Ministry was dangerous but manageable, so that Harry would not hesitate, but would come ahead.

And then, once he was near, the Dark Lord, the Lord of all creation, would perform the Heir-Call again, and it would be much likelier to work this time, when Harry knew his power better and knew how many were Squibs now.

He had just nodded in satisfaction and turned back to his work when the Stone's voice said, _That was not nice._

And time flooded the Ministry like a river turned back on itself.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry lifted his head sharply as the air behind him shimmered. When he turned, it was to see the Centaur Glade alight with wavering shapes. The returning centaurs, he knew, but he didn't know why they hadn't arrived as smoothly as they vanished. According to what Moon had told him, they should have.

Then the shapes hardened, and Harry could make them out. He stared, though. Several of the palomino and chestnut centaurs looked considerably younger than they had when they went to the Centaur Office, one or two foals. One black centaur had to lean on his spear, so decrepit did he seem. Only Moon looked relatively normal, and Harry could make out a few wrinkles of age around his eyes that hadn't been there before. He shook his head and fixed his eyes on Harry with an effort.

"What happened?" Harry whispered. He would have gone to them, but Draco's hand on his shoulder held him back. Harry bit his lip and forced himself to remain still, conceding that until they knew what magic had affected Moon and the others this way, it was probably stupid to touch them.

"Time," Moon whispered. "Time is loosed in the Ministry." He turned and caught his black herdmate just as he started to collapse, easing him gently to the ground. In the profound silence that had overtaken his fellow wizards when the centaurs appeared, Harry could hear the aged centaur's breath, wheezing harshly in and out of his lungs. "It struck us just as we tried to return. As you can see, it changed some of us." He gestured to the foals who were trying to heft their weapons. "I do not think it has affected their memories, for I am aged, and yet I have not lived through other years."

"Is this an enchantment of Voldemort's?" Harry demanded, his heart bounding at the very idea. If Voldemort had entered the Department of Mysteries and managed to drain some of the Stone's artifacts, of course it was perfectly possible, but the thought of facing him—except alone, where there would be no one else to suffer the effects—made Harry's heart snap in horror.

Moon shook his head. "The surge came from beneath us, but further beneath than Voldemort was."

"The Stone, then," Harry said. He wondered why it had decided to interfere in the battle. Of course, it could be something as easy as a decision to defend its home, when Indigena and Voldemort between them might well manage to down the Ministry.

Moon gave a painful nod. "Yes." Then he turned and aimed a hoof at the black centaur. "Can you drain the extra magic from him?"

Harry started and hurried forward. The centaur shivered as Harry laid hands on him, but Harry didn't know if it was from pain or the alien touch of a human wizard. He closed his eyes and began to drink, and nodded at the slightly sour, slightly salty taste in his throat. Yes, this tasted like the artifacts he had drained when the Unspeakables were hunting him. The Stone was attempting to age Voldemort, it seemed.

Harry doubted it would work. Given the Horcruxes, Voldemort was immortal, and effectively outside the scope of normal time. But the Stone had always relied on time magic first, and perhaps did not know about the Horcruxes. It had not known about the prophecies that danced around Harry until it confronted him in the Department, after all.

Slowly, the extra years sloughed away, and the black centaur danced and kicked and stepped away from Harry with a sweeping bow. "Thank you, _vates_," he said. "My name is Corydon, and my life is yours to call upon if you will."

Harry nodded, then turned towards the foals. Moon shook his head, however, and moved between him and them. "The young ones must mature again," he said. "The stars declared it long ago, when we first came in contact with those who could change us. Forward in time, into a future we did not live, we might return. But backwards in time, we must grow up with a second past."

Harry couldn't say that he understood that, but when he caught the newly-young centaurs' eyes, they all nodded, so he backed off. He asked for a more detailed report, then, but there seemed to be little that Moon could tell him that they did not already know. Vines everywhere. Voldemort beneath them, draining magic. The Stone sending Time flowing through the corridors.

Voldemort a shadow of immense power. Moon had never felt the like, and though he hid the fear well, Harry could see it bubbling in the backs of his eyes. He had not known that one wizard could be that mighty, and it left him afraid for the future of his people. The centaurs had slavery or death to fear if Voldemort won, and had had it ever since they chose to ally with Harry.

_They knew that, though. They allied with me knowing that. _Harry forced himself to think of something other than what would probably happen to the centaurs in a dark and distant future, and wrestled his mind back to the immediate problem. _How to enter the Ministry, if the Stone is making it impossible for anyone but Voldemort, and maybe Indigena, to live there?_

They would go to the alley outside the Ministry, he decided at last, and choose from there. At the very least, they could send fire down through the telephone box shaft and try to burn Indigena's vines, so that if the Stone retracted its magic, they would have a clear path to approach.

"Apparate to the alley outside the Ministry," he said, raising his voice so that everyone could hear him. "If you don't have a clear picture of it or can't Apparate, take the arm of someone who does." He noticed that Parvati was taking Connor's arm, and that, after a small hesitation, Hermione had taken Zacharias's. Harry caught every pair of eyes he could, trying to send silent strength and reassurance forth.

No one backed down. No one even really looked away, though he caught stray shivers and shudders here and there.

"_Apparate_," Harry said, and closed his eyes, and leaped.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Indigena shivered as the waves of time swept over her, and all the flowers in her body closed their petals in the face of winter. An immense sleepiness had overcome her. She wanted to lie down, wrap herself in warm earth, and not wake until the winds of spring had made the air mild again.

A moment later, though, heat and an incredible energy struck—summer. Indigena shook her head and forced the weariness away, forced herself to remember that her Lord was fighting this enemy a few floors below, and might need her.

Then came the dying tints of autumn. Indigena growled under her breath. _At least I have perennials and not annuals as the basis of my being, or I might have simply withered when the time began to vary. But all these changes are still annoying._

She fought her way against what felt like heavy air—years reversed and flowing—towards the lift shafts. Her vines had tied the lifts shut, of course, so that the people in them could not escape her Lord's reaping, but Indigena could descend beside them, sliding from tendril to tendril.

As she slithered down between one leaf and the next, dropping like a bit of dew from a thick strand to a thin one, she felt her Lord gathering his strength like an immense maelstrom, preparing to strike at the Stone. Indigena frowned as she landed at the bottom of the shaft and opened the door. _I wonder how he will do that? The Stone is, after all, immune to magic in and of itself._

A moment later, as she felt the magic heave and surge forward, she had her answer. Her Lord was not attacking the Stone directly, from the front, but coming around from the back and the side, dropping to the tenth level and rising up. Indigena felt the doors to the Department of Mysteries buckle, smashing open, unable to stand the tide flowing against them.

And then the Stone said, in a voice that echoed throughout the Ministry, _Now I am angry_, and the time turned to crushing cold.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Cupressus turned to look around the room, nodding to the family heads whose eyes he met. Even Tybalt Starrise, distasteful as it might seem, poor heir though he made to his mighty uncle Augustus Starrise, was there, and he met Cupressus's gaze with a raised brow and a cocky smile.

At least his Muggleborn partner was quiet, keeping his eyes cast down, as befitted someone of his heritage in a room with lines that stretched back to the dawning of wizardry in the British Isles.

As for the others, they knew what they were about, and they knew what this gathering was about. Augusta Longbottom gave Cupressus a nod. Amelia Bones avoided his eyes, since she knew that she had things to be ashamed of, but she did not stand and walk from the room. Miriam Smith raised a hand in acknowledgment when her turn came to stand subject to his gaze. Cupressus gave her a slow nod. Though the Smith family had lost in power and prestige over the years, in part because they so rarely took political advantage of their descent from Helga Hufflepuff, they remained paragons of the culture that was gone. Cupressus had always admired the way they raised their children, so that it made _sense_ for their heirs to take political control at fifteen, instead of waiting two more years until the time of their greatest magic.

"Listen to me," he said, when he thought he had examined the faces of everyone who mattered, and the room quieted at once. Augusta Longbottom leaned forward. The rest of them showed various signs of listening, which contented Cupressus. They would demonstrate their attention more clearly in a short time.

"The Ministry has all but fallen," he said bluntly. "Indigena Yaxley's vines have, by now, made meals of most of those in the building, or held them as meals for her Lord. I rescued the Acting Minister, but many others—our friends, our family, and those who made decisions—are dead or gone. The Wizengamot was not meeting today, or the whole of the wizarding government in Britain might have perished."

"What about Aurora Whitestag?" Augusta asked. Cupressus knew she had been in contact with Aurora, since she had often written the Ministry in the last few months about rights for half-human wizards and witches.

"She is dead," Cupressus answered. "The first victim of Indigena, if the wards I set were correct." And no one in this room, he knew, would question if they were correct. "That means that either we have no government, or we have tatters built on the backs of Acting Minister Juniper and the Wizengamot, or—" And he cocked his head and waited for someone else to come to the obvious conclusion.

Amelia Bones, of all people, was the one who found words for it. Of course, she had always been quick to leap to conclusions where Harry was concerned, Cupressus thought, with pardonable cynicism. "Or we have a government built in alliance with the _vates_, and on the shoulders of the Light."

"Not just in alliance with the _vates_," said Cupressus. "Working as equal partners with him. We have the Acting Minister still. We need not make Harry our Minister, our leader. What matters is that we show a strong, guiding hand to bring wizarding Britain through this crisis."

"Always thinking of the future," Miriam Smith murmured from her corner.

Cupressus nodded to her. The words were a private joke between them, remnants of a time long ago when a violent political disagreement between their families had been turned aside by his words. "Yes. And we will need it. I do not think that Harry can rescue the Ministry. I saw the vines. There were too many of them, and the attack happened too suddenly. If more than a few other wizards escaped, then I will be surprised. I nearly did not as it was."

"Where is the Acting Minister now?" Tybalt Starrise asked, his head cocked and his foot bouncing. Cupressus was impressed to see his partner lay his hand on his arm in restraint. _Perhaps that one is not so bad an addition to the councils of the Light after all._

"In a guest room of my home," Cupressus said evenly. "Resting comfortably. Sleeping off smoke damage, in fact."

He could see the opinions darting through the eyes around him. They knew what he really meant. And they were considering whether it would be worth it to wake Erasmus and demand that he hear what was happening. Some of them might think they could better manipulate Erasmus than Cupressus, which was certainly true.

Cupressus waited. This was the first test. If they gave in to the temptation to achieve personal political goals, they would demand that he wake the Acting Minister. If they did not, if they cared more about the future of Britain as a whole and what they might build in concert with the Dark wizards and Harry, they would let him sleep.

"Why interrupt his well-earned rest?" Miriam Smith murmured. "Let him sleep."

"Let him," said Augusta.

"Let him," echoed half a dozen other voices.

Cupressus inclined his head, the only visible acknowledgment he intended to give, but in secret, he was immensely proud of the other wizards and witches around him. They had put aside the goals that might have divided them, and they were going to pool their strength instead of wielding it against each other. He doubted Dark wizards could have done as much.

A spark of loneliness shone in the back of his mind, as always in situations like this. _Ignifer should be here, standing beside me, to see this. She was my true heir._

He smothered the spark with the ease of long practice, and nodded to Miriam Smith. "Such an effort as we plan to make must involve the cooperation of Ireland and Britain. What say you, my lady, to being the British representative of the alliance, while I am the Irish one?"

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Sylvan Yaxley cried out as his hands began to freeze. Oaken replaced him, while Sylvan shook off the cold in the other world, but the Lord Voldemort knew they must trade places again, and soon. The twins were invulnerable to most human spells and curses, the magic of the wizarding world, but this winter rising up through the Ministry now was not from the wizarding world. It came from another place, one similar to that where one twin always hid, and it could not be denied, hidden from, or transcended for very long.

It would have frozen his Indigena, too.

But it could not whelm Lord Voldemort, especially not now that he had broken the doors of the Department of Mysteries and was flowing into his enemy's stronghold, feeling the sharp sparks and spears and spines of magic all around him, debating which ones he wanted to swallow.

The Unspeakables dashed out, ready to defend their master. The bindings connecting them to the Stone were truly impressive. The Lord Voldemort studied them in admiration. When he built his Death Eaters again—when he decided that he needed sworn companions—he would adapt some of the vows that the Stone had invented, and use them on his own people.

But they were mortal still, and armed with artifacts enchanted by ordinary wizards, and Lord Voldemort was not mortal and not an ordinary wizard. He swallowed their magic without a pause, and since it was their magic that bound them to the Stone, they halted in confusion.

The cold grew worse. Lord Voldemort laughed aloud. He could feel the Stone's strange innocence. It worked its experiments, even the ones that other humans would consider horrible, in the spirit of pure knowledge. That was all it wanted from the prisoners brought into its domain, from the artifacts it collected, from the Unspeakables who swore to it. Simply to know, to demarcate the boundaries of and _learn_ those subjects it found interesting.

It did not know evil.

He did.

Lord Voldemort turned his magic to memory, and sent every current of his being that had invaded the Department of Mysteries to carry images of the things _he_ had done, in the pursuit of knowledge. He showed the Stone the bones he had removed from living flesh, and the joy he had taken as he watched blood spill over his hands, and knew another life destroyed. He showed the Stone the branches of magic he had learned in the heart of India, knowledge that even its own practitioners had declared too dangerous to have at the last. Pain, there was pain, and he had caused agony even when he was fairly certain of the answer to his researches, for to cause pain was joy.

The Stone connected his blood-soaked tortures to its own blood-soaked tortures, and recoiled in confusion. Had it done that, as well? Had its actions been evil in the eyes of those who watched it, immoral?

Lord Voldemort laughed, and laughed, and laughed. The Stone was retreating before him, pulling its cold into itself as it considered this new perspective. The Stone was immortal, immune to magic, but there were only two lords that were deathless here, Death and he. He had spurned Death, he had defied it, and in a moment he would show the Stone how.

And then the moment had come, because on the upper edge of the Ministry he felt his heir arrive.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Monika would have attended earlier to the shrill alarm ringing from her pool that tracked the activity of Lord Riddle and Harry, but she had been elbows-deep in birthing fluid, trying to make sure the crossbred _ovantula_ survived the half-whale child she was giving birth to. As soon as she could, she hurried to the pool, washing her arms clean, and watching the images that formed between trailing lines of blood and dark purple gore.

The image showed only abstract pictures, a swelling cloud of dark glory facing a tiny, gray spark.

Monika straightened. _This is it. This is the moment when the final battle comes. It must be. Lord Riddle has attained his highest level of power._

She hurried to fetch the items she would need to interfere in the battle anonymously. She would need to be swift, and invisible, or else the Pact would notice and condemn her for violating boundaries. But the Pact also tended to live with what had happened. If she succeeded, they would grumble and scold, but would not offer her actual violence.

Monika smiled a bit. _How could they offer me actual violence? If I succeed, I will be the most powerful witch in the world._

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

"Oh, but I expected she would do something like this."

The calm words cut through Pamela's swearing, and she turned her head to see Alexandre approaching the prophecy-pool. A swirl of gold curled above his shoulder, and Pamela eyed it and stepped out of the way. She had never liked being near an active prophecy. It tried to bend all the people around it to fulfill it. She was free-willed, thank you, and believed in free will, not in fate.

"You _expected_ it?" Pamela demanded. "How, when we know that Harry threatened her with death if she didn't stay out of Britain?"

Alexandre waved a hand, his eyes intent on the pool. "Monika always has thought she can surpass the limits. She would believe that she was not about to be caught even if she saw the Pact Lords and Ladies bellowing on her trail. Rules do not apply to her that apply to others. And if she can manage to transfer Harry's magic into herself, she may even be right. Certainly the Pact would not dare to touch her then, and she could command the curses and the creatures that Harry may have set on her."

"I still don't see how you could have foreseen this exact sequence of events," Pamela murmured, stepping back from the prophecy-pool. She felt itchy, wanting to do something, but, of course, if she intervened, that would be just as bad as what Monika was doing. Sometimes she hated that she had chosen Light when it came time to Declare.

Alexandre touched the active prophecy beside his shoulder and raised an eyebrow.

"You're _kidding_," said Pamela, staring.

He made a little moue at her. "I do wish you wouldn't be so undignified," he murmured, kneeling. "A Light Lady should be a bit more formal, and I wish that you respected the rules, Seeaborn."

"There's a prophecy that predicted this?" Pamela demanded, kneeling next to him.

"Just so." Alexandre apparently found the pool much more interesting to look at.

"And what are we supposed to do about it?"

He turned a lazy smile on her. "The prophecy predicted that, too." He reached his hand into the pool, his arm vanishing to the elbow. "And, as it happens, there are many different fates alive in Britain right now, and I am a friend to prophecies."

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

The Stone had already recovered from its shock. Now that it was alive to the differences in moral and immoral actions, it wanted to know more about them. The Lord Voldemort could feel the deep coil of its interest rising like the tide, trying to learn more about him and make him stay in one place so that it could do so.

He had already drained most of the artifacts in the Department of Mysteries, though, and the majority of his attention was on the surface, where his heir was waiting, vulnerable and unsuspecting. How _could_ he suspect, when the Dark Lord was more powerful than any Lord that had ever lived?

Carefully, he Apparated Sylvan, Oaken, and Indigena to safety. He would have liked for them to be here to see his triumph, but the cold had disabled Indigena completely, and Sylvan and Oaken, though powerful, were not Lord-level wizards. They would not understand much of what was happening.

Then he tugged on the vines that ran throughout the Ministry. His level of understanding of them did not matter. That Indigena was the one who had bred them did not matter. What mattered was the level of his magic. Magic more than compensated for missing knowledge.

The vines sank more deeply into the stone at his command, and trembled, and writhed, and dug their roots in. And then they began to pull, and the pulling made the walls of the Ministry sway and crack.

The Ministry was full of Squibs now, people whose magic he had reaped. The Lord Voldemort needed it no longer.

He did three things simultaneously then. He rose, moving his body out of danger in an Apparition to the surface.

He reached out and began the Heir-Call, pulling powerfully on Harry, commanding his heir to come to his side.

And he commanded the vines to bring the Ministry down, stone after stone, wall after wall, in a collapse and a roar of rubble on the head of the Stone and its Unspeakables and the newly-made Squibs.


	59. Taken And Snared As a Prey

The title of this chapter again comes from a line in Swinburne's "Hymn to Proserpine," the poem the story is titled after: "The depths stand naked in sunder behind it, the storms flee away;/ In the hollow before it the thunder is taken and snared as a prey."

**Chapter Forty-Six: Taken and Snared As a Prey**

Harry felt caught between a ringing bell and a stabbing sword. The twinge in his head was the ringing bell. The voice was the stabbing sword, chanting his obligation to Voldemort over and over again.

And now Voldemort had appeared on the surface, his voice roaring in laughter, the shadow of his power sweeping the sky like the death of hope. Harry could feel the hunger of his open gullet. He'd drained the magic of everyone in the Ministry, it seemed, but he would be more than happy to make a meal of the wizards and witches who had come with Harry.

And Harry could not _help_ them because of this stupid Heir-Call.

Before he could decide what to do, the deserted telephone box collapsed into its own shaft. Harry lifted his head, blinking away the tears of pain, and tried to determine what had caused that. A vine rose in answer from the hole, a flower on the end that waved like a hand, the petals opening and closing before they dived back into the ground. Harry heard the cracking and rending, then, which could mean only one thing.

_He's bringing the Ministry down. _

And, doubtless, all the people in there whom Voldemort had drained hadn't managed to escape before he did it.

Harry lunged forward, his own magic blazing around him. The Heir-Call dropped him before he'd run two steps. He heard the continual cracking in front of him, but he could hardly see anything through his tears, hardly move between the pain in his lungs and the hammer that felt poised to smash his skull open.

But he _had_ to. He had to save those who couldn't save themselves. If his magic couldn't do that, what good was it?

When the voice began its chant again, Harry replied in the words that would defeat the Heir-Call, refusing to let himself be cowed or think about the consequences that might follow this. "I deny the claim. I am legal heir of the Black line, and now I bind myself to that family of my own free will. My name is Harry Black, and Tom Marvolo Riddle has no claim on me."

The pain vanished so suddenly that Harry was left in the middle of what felt like an immense silence, though he knew it wasn't. His own gasps tore his lungs, now.

But that meant he was free to do what needed to be done.

He rose, his magic and his rage already stirring like ropes around him, aiming to reach down the lift shaft and stabilize the Ministry.

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The Lord Voldemort was displeased. _Very_ displeased. He had not imagined that his heir, usually so stubborn, would choose _now_ to give in and be difficult about the claim that his Lord did have on him, and had had on him since that fateful night in Godric's Hollow. Briefly, he considered reaching out to the third.

Then he disdained the idea. Far better to save that for a moment when Harry could concentrate on it, and would collapse in perfect despair. For now, Harry was too concerned about the dying Squibs to notice anything else.

Of course, the Lord Voldemort could always increase his despair over this event. Not for nothing was he called the Dark Lord. Dark his heart, and dark his power, and dark his vows, and dark his glee when he saw someone else unable to do that which was most important in the world to them.

So he struck Harry with his magic. He had grown mighty; it barely needed a thought to bind Harry's limbs, or to mimic the vines that Indigena had once bred for him and declare that his wandless magic could not fly beyond a certain limit from his body. Harry tumbled to the ground like an ice statue, though the Lord Voldemort knew it was his heart and not his body that would shatter when he landed. He leaned back and prepared to watch, disregarding the rushing of the wizards and witches beyond Harry. _They_ did not matter, not when none of them would know how to hurt him if the solution pranced in front of them.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry screamed, but only in his head; his voice seemed to have ended, too. He threw himself against his bonds again and again, his anger increasing each time, fury spreading over his mind like a cloud. He _had_ to do something. This wasn't like the graveyard, where he had stayed helpless while the werewolves devoured a little boy. That was when Voldemort had the power of Midsummer behind him. This time, he did not—it was no significant day, not even Midwinter—and so that meant that Harry should fulfill his duty and _defeat him_.

But the bonds did not yield for all Harry's desperate reasoning. He called up his magic and pulled on the tunnel that connected it to Voldemort, and still it did not increase. The bonds themselves seemed to hold his magic separate from Voldemort's for now, as in a glass cage.

The hole in the ground roared, and then the stones around the place where the telephone box had stood began to crumble and sway and drop into the gap. Dust swirled in the air, blanketing the exact circumstances from Harry's sight, but he had ears, and they told him well enough what was happening.

The Ministry was collapsing. He heard stone shrieking, iron buckling, wood snapping and groaning under the intense pressure—or maybe those were people shrieking, skulls buckling, bones snapping and groaning. His own yells obscured some of the more delicate distinctions between sounds. He had never pulled as hard, never strained as hard, as he did against the bonds. He _had_ to get free. Or he _had_ to wake and find that this was a bad dream, that Voldemort hadn't really managed to destroy the Ministry and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives inside it.

But he did not wake, and the sounds went on rising from the hole. Groan and snap and buckle and shatter, and the Ministry fell and fell, and still Harry was on the lip of the hole with the bonds of magic wreathed tight around him, with Voldemort laughing in his ears.

Voldemort laughing.

Harry turned to face him. He was a crouched white shape to the left of Harry, a short distance from the pit, leaning forward. Whether he had a snake around his waist, concealed in the folds of his flowing robe, or whether his magic saw for him, Harry did not know, and did not care. It was obvious that his enemy was savoring his expression, whichever way he took it in.

Harry had a moment where even the fact of death in front of him seemed less important than their observation of one another.

And then he fell over the edge into hatred.

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Minerva stepped carefully away from the rest of the children, though her instincts shouted at her to stay near them in case a spell should strike. She didn't think they would move. They stood still with fascinated horror—all but Draco Malfoy, who strained against a wall of magic that wouldn't let him dart forward and aid Harry. But no one was paying attention to her, even when she drew her wand and leveled it at Voldemort.

She knew she might die. There was a deep calm in the middle of her that accepted that possibility. But at least she wouldn't die on a bed in the hospital wing, swallowing potions and complaining about the taste of them to Poppy. She knew that Poppy wouldn't understand her determination not to do that. But then, Poppy had never been a Gryffindor, had never known that intense longing to die on her feet.

Severus, at least, was watching her. Minerva would recognize that burning gaze on her back anywhere.

Harry pulled and writhed in midair, screaming in a voice from which the sanity had gone. Minerva did not know how Voldemort was holding him, but it obviously involved magic, and it had obviously been effective. It had kept from diving into the Ministry to save anyone.

_The Ministry. All those poor people—_

Minerva put the thought from her head. She had to think about the here and now, the way she had after the Children's Massacre when she'd carefully taken the Muggleborn children, still living, down from their crosses. That had been Evan Rosier's work, but it had been done on the orders of his master. And now that master was in front of her, and she had a chance to make a difference against him, but not if she lost herself in mourning.

A distraction. That was all she could be against a wizard whose power brooded fit to crush her mind, but that might be all she needed to be, when Harry danced on the edge of breaking free.

She Transfigured Voldemort's left foot into a rat. There came a pained squeal from under his robe, and then the rat bit his leg in the desperate scramble for light and air. Minerva smiled. She knew that spell well. It had disabled more than one Death Eater, in the days when she was still fighting them.

Those days of the First War seemed almost innocent, considering what lay before them now.

Voldemort turned his attention to her. Minerva stared into his face, a bit surprised to find herself almost fearless. She could feel his magic, yes, but what she _saw_ was his eyes, burned and destroyed by the venom of the Many cobras. Harry had been the one to execute that plan when he was fifteen. No matter how hard he struggled, Voldemort kept losing to a teenage boy.

And Minerva was sure that the same thing would happen now.

Even as Voldemort's magic sought and found her weakness, even as the crushing pain in her heart began, she felt magic travel past her like snapped rope, and knew that Harry was free. And she could imagine the anger and the brewing hatred that he would bear, having heard more than a thousand people die.

Harry threw the hatred directly into Voldemort's face.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Monika was wise enough to land a long way from the battle. Though she doubted the Muggles knew what was going on, and even some weaker wizards and witches would only shiver and complain of a coldness in the air, any Lord or Lady would feel the immense amounts of power being tossed about. By the feel of it, the scent of it, Lord Riddle had reaped more than a thousand wizards and witches.

Monika stood there for a moment with a smile on her face, her eyes closed. _How wonderful it must be to have the _absorbere _gift_. _He enacts the dominance that the rest of us only dream of. The rest of the world is his prey, and when he is not stopped by interfering children or prophecies, they know it._

She shook herself out of her preoccupation, and knelt down to place the small silver statues she'd enchanted on the ground. The first was a perfect replica of Lord Riddle, with the information she'd discovered about his childhood carved on it. That had not been easy to come by, but it was worth paying spies in Britain itself and observing Harry's movements. A journey he'd taken to an insignificant orphanage had yielded a treasure trove of information.

The second statute represented Harry, and Monika had managed to carve far more information on that one, because Harry was more open about himself. Monika shook her head sadly. She would have advised him not to be, but, of course, after today, he wouldn't be in a state to listen to her advice.

The air around her turned cold and dark with power. Monika paused, cocking her head. It seemed that Harry had broken free of Riddle's hold and was wheeling against him. Monika shook her head again. Under the circumstances, it was as ridiculous as a dog attacking an elephant. He would never survive, save for her interference, and he should know that. He should have fled, forsaken the dead and worked to save the living. She was a bit surprised that he could so give up his own principles.

She turned back to her work, pulling the tapeworm that would feed her Harry's magic from her robe pocket. She let it coil around the silver statue of Harry for now. She could not send it _into_ him until Harry had both survived the battle and imbibed the magic. Her task was to make that a bit easier.

The second creature she drew out had taken her some time and effort to breed. She knew as much about snakes as any other living creature, but Lord Riddle was a Parselmouth, which had changed her calculations and made the first serpents she created not strong enough. She touched the small head of the jade serpent now and whispered instructions to it, crooning love and praise. The little snake yawned, patches of gold fluttering on her head, fangs extending from her upper lip. Monika knelt and wound her about Lord Riddle's statue, where she would stay until the moment Monika told her to strike.

Then she stepped back and looked up at the sky, the swirling gray clouds that Muggle would call bad weather and she knew were power.

"Don't worry, Harry," she murmured. "Auntie Monika's coming to rescue you. And then drain you, but, of course, one can't have everything."

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry had never hated so much.

He wanted Voldemort to _suffer_. He had always disdained torture, because it put off the deaths of enemies who could cause more trouble in the meantime, and it was often used as misplaced vengeance. And he had feared the impulse that he had sometimes found in himself, to revel in pain.

Now he reveled in _it_. And he fully saw why some other people wanted their enemies to suffer. But no one, he was sure, had ever deserved it as much as Voldemort.

The moment he was free of the bonds, thanks to Voldemort's distraction, he lunged at him and began to tear, ripping magic from him like strips of flesh, pulling it to himself and winding it into his being. The technique he had learned when he was studying Parseltongue magic, to divide his _absorbere_ gift into many small snakes and set them on his target from several different directions, he used now, but he had as many as thirty snakes moving all around Voldemort, taking any magic they could and channeling it directly back to Harry. He could control them, when he would never have dared anything like this when he was facing Slytherin, because his anger made it impossible for him to seek a lesser punishment.

The magic that flowed him into came from people drained and murdered, used as sources for their magic. The paths of their lives were ended now, and what they might have been, wonderful or evil or helpful to others or merely the cause of amusement and a smile once a day, would never be known.

That _maddened_ Harry.

He ran around and around his magical parent. He could feel Voldemort's amusement, now that he had recovered from his indignation at having his foot transformed into a rat. Voldemort was strong, and Harry was small. All he had to do was crush Harry.

_If he can catch me._

Harry was small, but he was quick. And he had a natural visualization for speed, here in this world of the imagination where what you imagined yourself doing was what mattered: flight on a broomstick. He thought of himself as swooping around Voldemort, chasing a Snitch which was vengeance for the dead, and he drained magic again and again, because Voldemort just thought of him as an annoyance and not a threat.

In fact, Voldemort was laughing again. And Harry saw a hole in his defenses, a relaxation that he should never have shown.

In a flash, Harry pounced and closed his little snakes' teeth on the magic revealed through that hole; he reached out and captured the elusive Snitch of power that he'd wanted to catch.

The hole opened almost straight to Voldemort's magical core, the remnant of a tunnel he'd placed to allow the swallowed magic easy access. It was one thing that made him powerful.

And Harry ripped it straight out of him.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

The Lord Voldemort lost his amusement again.

His heir should know better. He should have given up. He should have come to the Heir-Call, and let his Lord have him. It was what he _must_ do, since his power was shared, his life was a gift, and his principles had not prevented such numerous and savage deaths.

He was not supposed to lock his serpents' teeth on what felt like a nerve, and in reality was a pure shred of power, and tug it away from him.

The Lord Voldemort staggered, and watched as the magic coiled around his heir's body, traveling down the tunnel, sticking closely to the boy as if that was where it had always intended to end up. He opened his mouth to scream, which would be followed by an attack so spectacular that Harry would have to give up.

And then someone else screamed, and his sight briefly fled as a claw traveled down the middle of his forehead, marking and scarring the skin. Blood flowed into his eyes, which pure balls of power had begun to regenerate. No magic could repair the effects of the Many cobras' poison, but it could grow brand-new eyes if enough power was concentrated in the right place.

In the moment of his distraction, Harry seized another shred of power, and then attacked the Lord Voldemort's body itself, trying to tear apart his midriff under the robe he wore—and the robe was not fine enough for the most powerful wizard in the world; he would have to see about getting something better.

Shaking the blood off, the Lord Voldemort saw a bird wheeling in front of him with a lizard's tail, claws on its wings, teeth in its beak. It screamed at him, and this time wheeled in to trail a talon across his right hand, opening a wound there, too. Coming a second time, its screech had the sound of satisfaction.

The Lord Voldemort ignored it for now. This bird was the representative of the connection between himself and his heir, and of course it would favor Harry, because magic was supposed to flow in one direction, not the other. But that didn't mean that it would give Harry the victory in this battle, and he could not allow it to distract him from winning.

He was going to win.

He could simply let his titanic power fall on Harry, crushing him out of existence, but he preferred not to do that; he might lose some of the magic that lived in Harry himself, that power he'd been born with. And the Lord Voldemort wanted it all. Harry was his most precious meal, if he could not become his most precious pawn and toy.

He might still be a pawn and a toy. He had resisted the Heir-Call, but the Lord Voldemort could feel the hatred coming from his heir's direction. He had fallen into loathing, abandoned his soul, and thus his principles, for the sheer chance to attack.

And he still had the scar on his forehead.

The Lord Voldemort began to perform the same spell that had enslaved his traitorous children to him again, the spell that depended on the hatred living in a person's soul and a mark that connected him or her to the Dark Lord.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Connor didn't _care_ that Snape was trying to make them all stay still, or that Parvati was holding on to his arm hard enough to cut off the blood flowing to his hand. He _had_ to go and check that Headmistress McGonagall was all right. She had just crumpled to the ground after casting that Transfiguration spell at Voldemort, and it wasn't right that she was lying there all by herself, without anyone to check on her health.

He took a step forward, and dragged Parvati with him. "Where are you going?" she yelled, leaning close to his ear to do it.

Connor winced. _She doesn't need to yell that loud. _The noises of cracking and crashing from the Ministry—well, where the Ministry had been—had retreated far underground now, and no more stones showed a sign of crumbling into the hole from the alley itself.

Except that—well, there was something else in the air. Connor supposed it was the sheer pressure from two competing, fighting Lord-level wizards. He could not really hear the magic, but his ears constantly popped, and it raced along his skin like rasping claws. It felt like the silence just before or after an immense storm. There was the temptation to shout, even though the silence that received their words still sounded like silence.

"To help McGonagall!" he shouted back. "Come with me if you're coming!"

Parvati, luckily, decided that she was no coward and would join him, so she set her feet and came with him. It felt like bearing into a wind, Connor thought, which made it all the more confusing to feel only still air against their faces.

He did pause on the way there to watch a shallow, bleeding wound appear across Voldemort's left hand. He shook his head. Was Harry causing that? Why didn't he strike harder than that?

Of course, maybe that was as hard as he could strike. Maybe he had tried, and he couldn't do anything else.

Connor shivered, and turned his attention back to McGonagall. She lay curled around her heart, in a position that should have made her seem frail and helpless. But she wasn't. She had fallen like a lioness, and if she was dead, Connor knew, she had died like a Gryffindor.

Was she dead, though? Connor didn't know. He crouched down beside her, one eye on Voldemort, his ears alive to the eerie stillness of the air that spoke of rushing power somewhere just beyond his hearing, and turned the Headmistress over, prying at the hold she had on her heart.

Her hands fell limp when he tugged hard enough. Her face was still, her lips nearly blue. But Connor thought he could see the pulse fluttering at the base of her throat even now, and that meant he could probably save her life, and that he had a duty to save it.

He took a deep breath, concentrating on his most recent Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons, and told Parvati, "Keep watch." She tossed him a dirty look—she was already standing over him with her wand out—but Connor didn't stop to reassure her or listen to any complaints she might have.

Peter's voice sounded in his head, calm and decisive, telling him what to do if he found someone almost dead and wounded, in need of immediate assistance. _Perform the Life Jolt Spell if you can. It gives them enough of a shock to bring them back to consciousness, sometimes, and gives them enough adrenaline to reach shelter._

Connor was unsure if it would work with someone who appeared to have had a heart attack, but he didn't care. He had no better ideas, so he placed his wand above the Headmistress's heart and spoke the spell, enunciating the first word carefully, just the way Peter had taught them. "_Vexatio vitae!_"

McGonagall gasped, and then began to cough. Connor felt the magic travel into her as a golden pulse a moment later, and he grabbed her hands as her eyes fluttered open, slinging her arms around his neck. "Come on," he whispered, hoping his voice was properly soothing, but also conveyed urgency. "Come with me. We have to get you to safety."

She limped with him towards the others. Professor Snape was striding out to help them by then, and Connor willingly handed her over. He could feel Parvati's pride at his back, and his heart was beating with pride of its own.

Then he turned, to see if he could aid his brother.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry knew he was drowning in his hatred, but he could not help it.

He loathed Voldemort with a coldness that startled him, that went deeper into him than bone or magic could go. The emotion was as cold as steel in the middle of a winter day, plates of metal that had replaced his blood. How could he have done that? How could he have brought down the Ministry on the heads of thousands of helpless people? That was the refrain that beat through and around Harry's pulse.

And thus he felt the hatred beginning to settle around him as chains, thanks to agony centered in his scar.

He tried to fight back, but Voldemort gave him, gleefully, the image of a witch cowering as he tore her magic away and then the ceiling above her began to sway and creak, and Harry was lost again. If he did not hate someone who had done that, then what was he?

On the other hand, if he let Voldemort take him and use him as a weapon against his allies, then what was he but a liability who should be destroyed?

He tried to shore up the defenses of his mind, reaching for his love of Connor and Draco and Snape, and Voldemort promptly struck at his weakened walls. He still had all that magic to use, and though his power would grow unimaginably great if he could manage to add Harry's magic to it, it was just on the edge of imaginably great right now.

Harry's thoughts sprang lightly among options. If he could create a trap that would draw Voldemort in, and hold him there while he did something that would kill himself—

But there he ran up against the walls of prophecy again, because if he had to be alive to fight and kill Voldemort, he could not commit suicide.

He was rapidly approaching the place where he would cause more harm alive than dead, though, the tipping point he had once warned Joseph about. Harry hated the choice that lay before him, but he feared that he must make it, while he was still sane enough and free enough of Voldemort's influence to make it at all.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Alexandre carried them through the prophecy-pool into the brooding gray air above Muggle London. Pamela was not quite sure if they were physically present, traveling through the pool in the way that Alexandre traveled secure in the arms of a failed prophecy, or if this was merely an extremely realistic image, but she felt air whistling along the sides of her face and ruffling her hair. That was realistic enough for her, she thought.

"Where is Monika?" she asked.

Alexandre turned his head, following the course of no magic visible to her. Pamela clutched the edge of the pool as the vision swooped up and down the streets of London, feeling a bit dizzy. She didn't want to fall in, just in case it was real and she did lose her life on concrete and cobblestones.

"There," said Alexandre suddenly, and pointed towards a corner. The vision obligingly stooped closer, and, sure enough, Pamela could make out Monika, crouched over what looked like a pair of statues twined with snakes, and now and then checking the sky for signals that Pamela couldn't see any more than she could see the clues Alexandre was following.

"She's trying to use sympathetic magic," Alexandre said clinically. "She'll open a hole in Tom's magical core, I would suspect, and let Harry defeat him, temporarily. Then she'll drain Harry's magic with that tapeworm she has." He shrugged when Pamela stared at him. "Yes, it will take almost all her magic, and if she leaps into the battle like that, she stands a high chance of getting killed. But it's a way to get around the fact that Tom still has Horcruxes she doesn't know about. Technically, he would still be alive, but she would destroy him by depriving him of magic. And she would utterly destroy Harry, of course, once she didn't need him as a conduit to pass the magic along."

"She's mad," said Pamela quietly, eyes fixed on the woman who knelt in the midst of her own blowing black hair.

"To challenge a prophecy? Quite so." Alexandre turned to smile at her, and Pamela was a little stunned at the brightness of his face. Of course, he was in the midst of a place where fate ran incredibly high, and perhaps that revitalized him as few things could have done. "I wish you could see prophecies, Seaborn. They fill the air here like birds-of-paradise. And this one is especially happy to be in the company of others of its kind." He sighed longingly and touched the shimmer of yellow above his shoulder. "For permission to visit Britain, when the prophecies are in season!"

"Shouldn't you do something soon?" Pamela demanded. Monika had begun to touch the statues and chant words under her breath, words that didn't sound like either Latin or German. Pamela though they might be Gothic, an old language that some wizards had refashioned as a magical tongue before Latin took over.

"The prophecy will tell us to wait for the right moment," Alexandre murmured, tilting his head to the side. "Unfortunately, I can do nothing to aid Harry in his battle against Lord Riddle. I am here only to stop Monika." He sat up, his eyes wide and his nostrils flaring. "And the moment for that is—_now._"

Pamela did not expect him to grab her hand and force her to participate in the bolt of white lightning he hurled at Monika.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Draco did not know what exactly was happening. To his eyes, Harry simply writhed from side to side, staring at Voldemort the entire time, and Voldemort stared back. He could feel tides of magic sloshing back and forth over his head, but to try to comprehend them would crush his brain. If Harry needed him, he could not tell. It was all very frustrating.

But there was a brain nearby that could comprehend them.

Draco closed his eyes and jumped into Harry's brain. It was the mind he knew best, besides his own, and over the years since he had acquired the possession gift, he had become adept at slipping in without a ripple, or he would not have dared to interfere in the middle of a battle so important.

What he found appalled him. Harry was struggling against guilt and hatred caused by the myriad deaths in the Ministry, deaths he felt responsible for, because he could have broken free of Voldemort's hold and saved them in time—he thought. If his power could not save lives, what good was it?

And from there, what Voldemort was doing was all too apparent. Harry hated him, much as he had that night on the Astronomy Tower when Scrimgeour had been assassinated. Voldemort had Harry on chains and was reeling him in.

Draco dared not possess Harry, not when it would involve distraction and magic that he did not know how to wield with the same instinctive control as Harry. He could do nothing but remind him of love.

He spread shimmering images of their joining rituals throughout Harry's brain: that first Walpurgis with its nervous dance, the July ritual when they had seen the Light and Darkness in each other's souls, the Halloween when Harry had finally yielded to some of the barriers breaking in himself, the Imbolc when Harry had shown that he fought like a tree, the Walpurgis when Harry had taken the lead, the July when Harry had come into his power and his knowledge of Draco's virtues at the same moment, and Halloween, this Halloween, when Draco had finally seen some signs that his lover actually _lusted_ after him.

All were wonderful. All were symbols of their lives together. And, Draco asked in silence as he dug at the memories and sent them to the surface of Harry's mind, would he really give everything they had survived together up for the chance of getting revenge on Voldemort? He knew better than that. He had taught his allies better than that, in fact. He should know better, and come with Draco.

Harry paused, hovering, the chains on his mind melting as Draco's influence began to strike through the gloom in his thoughts.

And then Voldemort decided to attack Draco's body.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Monika reeled, and a shriek exploded from her throat. She could not help screaming. She had never expected a lightning bolt to launch from the sky just during the most delicate part of the spell and melt the silver figurines she had molded to take the places of Lord Riddle and Harry.

She stood, eyes narrowed, searching the air. When she found who had done this—

The people who had done this were gazing down at her from a hole just above her. One of them was not a surprise; Pamela Seaborn had disliked Monika for decades, and Monika returned the favor with interest. But Alexandre rarely acted against anyone in the Pact, and that he would do so when Monika was a Dark Lady, as he was a Dark Lord, was doubly surprising.

"You have crossed the line of the Pact's acceptable interference," said Alexandre calmly. "You have come to another Lord's country uninvited—in fact, against his command to keep out—and you would have taken his magic from him if you could." He appeared careless of the battle that swirled behind him, never looking away from her. "Let us tell them, Monika, and you will never have a chance to fight before the rest of them blast you out of existence. They would have accepted your interference if you had succeeded, doubtless, but you didn't."

Monika bared her teeth. What Alexandre said was true enough. But—

"Harry is not a Lord," she said. It was the technicality that she had counted on, if worst came to worst, to keep her from savage punishment. Yes, a Lord had the right to keep all other Lords and Ladies out of his country, but Harry had not Declared and had not claimed the title that would give him that right.

"He is accepted as such by the Pact, until they decide what else to do with him." Alexandre gave her a lazy smile. "And the others will take revenge on you, especially since you tried to attack him in the middle of a battle with a Lord they don't want to face themselves, unless…" He let the offer dangle.

Monika bared her teeth. _Bastard._ He was going to blackmail her, of course. It was what Monika would have done in his place. But that did not mean that she enjoyed being in this position any more. "What do you want?"

"You will _stay_ out of Britain for the duration of this crisis," said Alexandre. "In fact, you will accept an Unassailable Curse from me that will hurt you if you come within a hundred miles of the island's shores. Also, you will give me the unicorns that I know you have captured."

Monika clenched her hands. "What do you want with them?"

"That isn't important to you." Alexandre smiled at her. "Just imagine what Coatlicue will do with this information, Monika. What _Elena_ will do. She has been waiting for an excuse to hurt you for some time, you know. She does not forgive insults easily."

The Dark Lady of Peru was not a threat that Monika needed to be handed right now, she thought grumpily. But it was also an effective one. Elena was slavering to get her hands on Monika's blood, and had been ever since Monika had stolen some valuable magical artifacts from under her nose and escaped punishment on a technicality. She would urge the Pact to demand death.

"I accept your terms," she said grudgingly.

"Good," said Alexandre, and dropped into the incantation of the Unassailable Curse. Monika eyed the slagged remains of her silver statues with regret in the few moments before she Apparated away.

_It was a good plan._

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

The Lord Voldemort was so far from pleased that he could see over the edge into true anger and disgust. His heir was not behaving as he should. And now he was remembering love too easily, a sure sign that his interfering lover rode with him. That meant the lover was not in his body, though, and so the Dark Lord could much more easily hurt the young Malfoy.

He made a feint in that direction, and Harry, unsurprisingly, sent a charging wave of magic to get between him and the body. The wave manifested as a snarling creature, half snake and half lion, singing with a phoenix's voice. The Lord Voldemort was tired of such antics, however, and destroyed the creature with a single blow.

The phoenix voice was the only thing he could not destroy. It went on ringing, rising from the air midway between the Lord Voldemort and Malfoy's body, sending cascades of Light into his brain. He hovered, waiting for it to be finished, building his strength as he did so. He would strike when Harry's magic wearied, as it must, or when Harry actually had the audacity to believe that he had driven his magical parent away from attacking.

Then sight was gone.

The Lord Voldemort's first belief was that Harry had found a way to blind him again, perhaps by draining the magic that had gathered in his eye-sockets. But then he felt cold around him, cold more profound than Harry could summon even in the midst of rage, and he knew what this was.

_You promised me that I could have his soul, _the voice of the wild Dark screamed in his mind. _You were to take his magic alone. But now I find you trying to take soul and body and magic and all. I will not have it. His voice is beautiful, and the one who sings like a phoenix is mine! In soul, _it added conscientiously.

The Lord Voldemort held very still. He could feel the wild Dark stalking all around him, manticore paws rising and falling in patterns that imitated those forming in the middle of the blood-and-flesh design on the floor of his home. The bad thing about encouraging its fascination with Harry, he decided, was that it then thought of Harry as its possession. And the wild Dark was very protective of its possessions, until the moment when it decided it didn't want them any more.

_Midwinter, _the wild Dark decided. _You can have his magic at Midwinter. For now, go home, little snake._

And the Lord Voldemort found himself flung spiraling after his Death Eaters, his magic unbraiding behind him as Harry lunged at the exact same moment, sank snake fangs in, and hung on, helpless, impotent rage filling him.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry opened his eyes slowly. He stood on the ground outside the immense hole that had been the Ministry with Draco in his arms. His own magic had increased enough to snap at the air around him. His phoenix song still warbled from his throat, low and rusty, but loud enough to make the point.

Voldemort was gone. And not far away stood the wild Dark in the form of a manticore, with an enchanted look on its face.

It paced towards him. Harry stared up at it, but didn't stop singing. He knew his voice was probably what had attracted the wild Dark in the first place, and the only thing keeping them safe.

_Well. For some version of "safe."_

The wild Dark lowered its scorpion tail and caressed the side of Harry's face with the sting. Harry tried not to think about what would happen if the tail moved just a little and sank through his cheek, or if the wild Dark grew bored and began attacking the people with him. He kept singing, and the sting fell down and rested in the hollow of his throat.

_Midwinter, _said the wild Dark, in a voice that played his bones like gongs. _Midwinter is when I shall have you, to sing for me like a caged bird. Until then, little one, sing on._

It was gone, then, and Harry could see the others, shivering and rubbing their arms, alive with gooseflesh. Draco blinked and pushed against his arms, letting Harry know he'd returned to his body. Only then did Harry feel free to stop singing, and to step away and let Draco stand on his own.

"Voldemort's gone?" Padma whispered, as if she couldn't believe it.

Harry nodded in silence, and looked at the hole where the Ministry had been. Now that he had the ability to do so, he let his magic range into it, looking for some sign that someone had survived it.

Nothing. Silence. No one. All had died when the walls and the ceilings fell on them. Voldemort would have made sure of that, of course, not wanting anyone to be spared, even for further torment later. He knew it would hurt Harry more if everyone perished.

"Voldemort's gone," he said, and his voice was hoarse and raspy and sounded like a dying cricket's. "But this cannot, in any sense, be called a victory."

The Ministry was gone, he thought as he turned away from the hole. The foundation of wizarding government, the greatest guarantee of stability in their world, had been smashed, and Voldemort still had most of the magic he'd managed to reap from the people who worked there.

And Midwinter was a month away.

Harry lifted his shoulders against the darkness, because someone had to do so. The suicidal part of himself was shut in a small cage and would have to remain there, for now. He didn't have the time to deal with it.

"Back to Hogwarts," he commanded, and after a look at his face, no one questioned him, or even tried to approach him. Harry stood alone at the edge of the hole for a moment, his head bowed.

He could still hear the walls snapping like bones, if he listened.

He could still feel the wild Dark's scorpion sting on his cheek.

He Apparated.


	60. In the Wake of Wildness

**Chapter Forty-Seven: In the Wake of Wildness**

Rita had not expected to be summoned, especially not with the amulet that she'd given Harry so long ago. Why would he call her now? There was so much to be done, since she'd seen the dust swirling up from the Ministry and received at least that much confirmation that a major attack had taken place. She needed to buzz about the ruins and interview survivors. She didn't need to Apparate to Hogwarts and then fly up to the Astronomy Tower, which was the only place the wards would permit her to approach in her Animagus form.

Her mind changed when she landed and saw Harry waiting for her, though. His face was imperious, shut, behind the marks of tears. That meant something _enormous_ had happened. He was preparing to send a public statement to the press and the wizarding world, Rita understood then, not only the article she had envisioned. She changed back to human, sitting on the battlements, and took out her quill and her parchment without even asking what it was about.

"The Ministry has fallen," Harry said.

Rita had always imagined she would immediately write down any such momentous news, but instead her quill froze, because she could not believe what Harry had said was true. It _had_ to be wrong, didn't it? The Minister might be dead, there might have been an attack by Death Eaters that left a hundred people killed or wounded, but the Ministry could not have _fallen_.

"What do you mean?" she asked. She was pleased that her voice did not shake. At least part of her fantasies of what would happen when she wrote down the most shattering story of her career was intact.

"I mean that the Ministry has fallen." Harry had two people at his shoulders, one a dark-haired young wizard Rita had seen before, one a golden-haired witch she didn't know as well, who glared at her as if she should be imprisoned for daring to question their leader. Harry himself didn't waver. He just looked her in the face and repeated that impossible news again. "I mean that the wizarding government is homeless now, though the Acting Minister escaped alive, and since the Wizengamot did not meet today, any of its members not in the building at the time of the collapse also still live. But Voldemort brought the building down. It has fallen. I searched, with my magic, for anyone other than the Acting Minister who might have escaped." He took a deep breath. "There were no survivors."

"How many dead?" Rita whispered. She had begun to write, but she felt almost as if her hand were part of another body, detached from her, while her ears remained to listen.

"In the high hundreds at least," said Harry. "Perhaps as many as a thousand. I didn't count them. I was more interested in whether or not someone lived in the rubble." He shook his head. "And no one did."

"How am I going to spin this?" Rita resisted the urge to throw one hand up in the air, because that would just be silly. "I can't just—I can't go to the _Prophet_ and print a story this bleak without some factor to mitigate its bleakness."

Harry raised an eyebrow and stepped towards her. Rita found herself mesmerized by the depth of his eyes. Of course, looking back later, she wasn't sure she saw the strength in them that she imagined there. It could easily have been that she saw what she needed to see, what she wanted to see.

"I have absolute faith in you," Harry told her. "If anyone can make a story like this sound less bleak, you can. While still telling the truth, of course." A small smile curled his mouth. "Didn't you say that you wanted to tell the truth and look good while doing it, Rita?"

_He still remembers. _She'd expressed the ambition to him more than three years ago, and so was slightly surprised that he did. But—well, perhaps he had people to remember it for him. As powerful as he'd become, Rita wouldn't be surprised.

"You think I can?" she said.

"I _know_ that you can." Harry tilted his head. "I've seen you rescue the wizarding world from impossible situations before. Words are your playthings. You can do this, Rita, and I know it, or I would have called on someone else, or just waited for people to discover this themselves." He raised an eyebrow. "It's not as though I don't have other things I could be doing."

Rita nodded in reluctant admission, and sat up. "Now, tell me all the details that you can remember."

Harry did. Rita had to admit it sounded more and more horrible the more she heard, but that didn't _have_ to matter. Words were her playthings, just like Harry said. If anyone could make this into a message of bracing hope for the wizarding world—here is the worst, now get ready for worse still—she could.

It must be done. So she would do it.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Erasmus wondered what sort of joke they thought they were playing on him. He knew that Cupressus had been a little more disagreeable lately, a little quicker to ask him questions that should not be asked, a little prone to stare from the corner of an eye when he should have both eyes on his work, but surely this was beyond even his capabilities.

"The Ministry cannot be _gone_," he told Cupressus. He was sitting in a room in the middle of the man's house, but that meant nothing. Of course Cupressus had had to rescue him from Yaxley's vines. He did not have to lie about the Ministry's collapse.

"It is," said Cupressus, his face absolutely closed. "Harry firecalled me not ten minutes ago. It was reduced to rubble. Everyone still in it died. We should be grateful that I was able to rescue you, sir, and that the Wizengamot did not meet today. We shall need everyone still alive to handle the panic and the psychological wound that Voldemort just dealt our world."

"Of course Harry would tell you something like that." Erasmus stood up. He'd felt a little faint when Cupressus rescued him. Smoke damage, Cupressus said, though Erasmus couldn't remember a fire. "You can't trust him, Cupressus. He wants to knock us down and replace us."

Cupressus closed his eyes. Erasmus supposed it must be to admire his intense wisdom, and kick himself for not seeing Harry's plans. But when Erasmus started to move towards the door, Cupressus interposed himself between.

"Sir," he said. He sounded as if he were speaking through gritted teeth. _Why_? "It really is imperative that you stay here until you can realize the magnitude of the situation."

"I do," said Erasmus impatiently. _One would think that he wanted Harry to gain control of the wizarding world, the way he's acting._

A horrible suspicion blossomed in his gut at that, but he had to put it aside. The oaths Cupressus had sworn when he became part of the Order of the Firebird would not let him act against the Light.

"You do not."

Cupressus took a step forward. Erasmus stared. Somehow—if he knew how, he would have used the trick himself—the old man had become an impressive wizard between one moment and the next, his magic giving him the shadow of wings, a blaze of Light working through his eyes and his mouth. His hand clutching his wand seemed to hold an instrument of doom. Erasmus eyed it nervously, more than aware now that he didn't know where his own wand was.

"The Ministry is gone," said Cupressus. "Fallen. Harry would not lie about something that could be contradicted so easily. You may use any fireplace in my home to learn the truth. Try to firecall your office, Minister, or the Department of Mysteries. They are _dead_. We must live in a world where our Minister acknowledges that, or by Merlin himself, I will _Obliviate _you, and you will say what I tell you to say."

"You cannot." Erasmus felt very calm now. He knew where he was: alone in the midst of enemies. It was a familiar position. "The Light would destroy you if you lifted a hand against me."

"I have always served the Light." Cupressus inclined his head. "And I know that the Light is larger than any single wizard's ambitions. It will not stop me if I do what I do for the good of the wizarding world. And I am sure that I do, sir. Try to firecall, since that seems to be the only thing that will convince you." And he turned and swept out of the room before Erasmus could question him further.

Erasmus shook his head and stepped out when he was sure Cupressus was gone, glancing cautiously in several directions. No one awaited him, however. Through an open door across the hallway, he could see a fireplace, and a bowl on the mantle that held Floo powder. Hesitantly, he went to it and cast a handful into the flames. They turned green.

Then he told himself not to hesitate. Cupressus's story was fable. Anyone could see that. "Minister's office!" he called, and tried to stick his head in.

He could not. A solid obstruction pushed back against him. When his eyes cleared a bit, he could make out stone and wood, a corner of his desk that had once stood near the far wall, the edges of slipping metal. The rubble started to lean towards him with a groan, as if eager to make room for itself.

Erasmus hastily popped back out. Then he shut the Floo connection, and gazed at the fireplace for a long time.

_That was only one room. My office. They could have collapsed it to make me believe their mad story._

Thus reassured, he firecalled the Auror Office. He would have some answers, or he would call on the Aurors to raid Cupressus's home and remove him from the man's "protective" custody.

There was stone there, too. And wood. And the stink of death. And only silence to answer his calls.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Cupressus strode back into the room where Miriam Smith awaited him, shaking his head. The others had returned to their homes after Harry's firecall describing the state of things at the Ministry. They knew they would be needed to calm the panic and spread the word in a carefully controlled way—and they probably needed some time and distance to recover themselves, Cupressus knew.

He didn't need it himself. And neither did Miriam, for the same reason, as he knew when he looked into her eyes. She knew, as he did, that the Light burned most fiercely in a time of deepest Darkness. This was the kind of hour that all true Light wizards prayed to be alive in.

They _mattered_, and would matter, to the world after this. And Harry had shown his worth in contacting them. If he was not an ally that could be trusted, he was close to it. Cupressus intended to work with him even more closely in the future.

"He's awake?" Miriam asked.

Cupressus returned to the source of his irritation. No matter how much they might matter to the world in the future, they had an obstacle in front of them now: what to do with the Acting Minister. "Yes," he said shortly. "And he refuses to believe that the Ministry was destroyed. I told him to firecall the various Departments and see if he received any answer. Even that will take some time to convince him. And then, of course, he will be prone to taking more importance on himself."

"We cannot let him have that," said Miriam. "We will build the government on our backs, and not his. It was a mistake ever to sit so stunned that we let power pass into his hands."

"I know it." Cupressus wasn't surprised by anything she was saying. They were the same thoughts that had passed through his head. "And what would you suggest?"

"Play on his fears." Miriam shrugged. "It's true that some people will want to kill him; once they find out he's still alive, he'll be a major target for the forces of You-Know-Who. And he needs to make public appearances without saying anything of substance. Urge him to remain in your house, compose speeches, and leave small and petty things up to us. He'll like that."

"It's deception," Cupressus felt compelled to say, because it was. And deception was not a tool of the Light.

"Deception in a greater cause." Miriam gave him a long look. "Unless you think our world can stand to have him at the helm right now."

Cupressus had to shake his head. Perhaps this was partly their punishment for allowing Juniper power at all, that they needed to deal with him now, and even use lies to do so. The Light would provide, and the Light would tell them if it disapproved so strongly as for their behavior to require correction. That was the good thing about serving the Light, and having defined rules and standards. One knew what one did wrong, and what one did right, and did not have to live with the chaos "defined" by the wild Dark.

"We will make our world right again," he said. "We will fight and win against Voldemort."

"We will." Miriam clasped his hand, and then turned to Apparate home. She had her own burdens to worry about, Cupressus knew, as the leader of the British part of the Light alliance. For one thing, the enmities in Britain against Harry ran deeper than those in Ireland, and for another, the closest wizard the British Light purebloods had had to a leader, Augustus Starrise, was long since fallen. She had not taken on an easy task.

But Cupressus was certain she could accomplish it, because there was no other choice.

He stood looking out his own window for a moment, relishing the thought of rallying the Irish Light purebloods, and felt an emptiness at his side. For a moment, he expected to turn and see Ignifer standing there, his perfect heir. She had been so devoted to the Light before she Declared for the Dark.

_But that is done with. And while we may be comrades-in-arms now, we cannot ever be father and daughter again._

Cupressus began his duties. It was how he steadied the round of his days, how he knew who he was, even in the wake of the devastating attack on the Ministry.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Remus listened to the howls riding back and forth across London. The packs sang to each other this way, exchanging news and messages and information via a complicated code that no human ear, even a wizard's, could discern the differences in. Right now, of course, the messages all talked of the Ministry's fall.

Remus could make out shadows of ambition there, too. Some werewolves would think that, with the Ministry's oppressive structure destroyed, the time had come to demand full rights from wizards. There was no Tullianum to swallow them if they didn't obey the laws, now, no Aurors to arrest them.

"Hail, brother."

He turned. Peregrine hesitated on the threshold of his pack's safehouse, her nostrils moving, until Remus nodded that she was welcome. Then she relaxed and padded forward, sitting down next to him and fixing him with an intent stare.

"What side do you stand on?" she asked. "With the wizards or against them?"

Remus smiled wryly. "Some werewolves have accused me of being more wizard than wolf," he answered. "But I see the cause of wizards and werewolves as being in common in this war. At least they know of magic's existence, and some of us do use wands and care about affairs in their world. Now is the time to ally with them—demanding respect and treatment as equals, of course, but not taking advantage of their weakness to take more than that. If we do, their world will be slower to recover, and the benefits and blessings that the more violent ones are dreaming of won't come to them anyway."

Peregrine nodded. "I have already thought of that. And if someone objects, and tries to lead their packs in a different direction?"

"Good luck to them," said Remus indifferently, "if they do not interfere with me and mine, or with Harry's cause. But I think they will interfere."

"And?" Peregrine sat up, tension radiating from her body. Remus could see his pack members shying away. They probably thought a fight between the two alphas was imminent. Remus didn't think so. Peregrine knew sense when she smelled it.

"Then they are welcome to fight me." Remus didn't have to project an air of quiet confidence this time. He really felt it. Since winning the fight against Blackbird, and then surviving Hawthorn's attack when she'd been in wild werewolf form, he'd become far more confident in his own body and his own powers. Few werewolves were his equals, whatever they might assume. "I'll beat them down and set them up again at the head of packs that follow our common welfare."

Peregrine smiled, carefully concealing her teeth so that Remus wouldn't take it for a snarl and attack. "Me, as well."

Remus nodded solemnly, and put out his hand, deliberately resorting to the human gesture before the werewolf one, which called for him to rub his cheeks with Peregrine's and receive reassurance from her calm scent. She both shook hands and rubbed cheeks, telling him that she believed in their citizenship in both worlds even as he did.

There would be packs who disagreed. The werewolves who wanted rights in the human world didn't understand, sometimes, that they had to make contributions to that human world and have a stake in its survival in order to receive any rights.

Remus would make them see sense, if he had to sit on all of them. This battle with Voldemort would be hard enough. Harry didn't need rogue packs biting Muggles in random numbers and holding equally random riots against wizards at the most inconvenient times.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

_It is very bad, _Griselda told herself. _But it could have been so much worse._

She thought that if she kept saying that, even in the privacy of her own head, she might come to believe it was true.

The _hanarz_ had summoned her the moment the Ministry began to fall, and Griselda had arrived in time to see the end of the battle between Voldemort and Harry. Then the southern goblins had gone into the rubble of the Ministry, trusting to their superior skills in the tunnels to save their lives if the stone and wood started to shift, searching for survivors.

They had found none, and given the songs the _hanarz_ had sent into the stone, which she said came back empty, there were none to be found.

So many people gone. So many people Griselda had known, so many she had fought and argued with, so many she had passed in the hallways every time she went to Courtroom Ten for a meeting of the Wizengamot. The loss was incalculable, as was the way it had changed the balance of the war.

_For now. I am sure there are people already attempting to calculate it._

The Acting Minister had escaped. They could establish a temporary Ministry. But Griselda knew it would not have the force of authority in many minds that needed a building and an office and all the trappings in order to think power was solid. They would have rebellions, arguments, and people joining Voldemort out of sheer terror of his power. They would have people who wanted to hold an election in the middle of war, people whose devotion to their principles outweighed their devotion to reality.

So preoccupied was she that she didn't notice, at first, the _hanarz_ trying to get her attention. When she did, she shook her head and apologized. The goblins had suffered enough ignorance from wizards throughout their long history together. Turning away from one now was a deep insult.

The _hanarz_ ignored that, though she would not have ignored the lack of an apology, Griselda knew. "We can compel attention to you, and forestall panic," she said. "At least, panic for anyone who has their money in Gringotts."

Griselda blinked and stood a little straighter. They were in one of the underground chambers of the bank, not far from the tunnels that had once led to the Ministry. _Get used to thinking in past tense. It will make the loss easier to bear._ "Do you think it's wise to involve your people in this, _hanarz_?"

"We are already involved." The _hanarz_ spread her hands slightly. "We stepped into politics with the Ritual of Cincinnatus, and the _vates_ will be fighting the Dark Lord. What is power if is saved and stored underground like silver unmined? It must not lie in stone any longer. We can rise. We will cut off access to the vaults for anyone who seems intent on joining the Dark Lord. We will give limited monies to those who cause trouble for the _vates_. There is no Ministry law to seize assets for the Ministry any longer, but we can deny financial independence to those who would work against us."

Griselda realized, then, how much really _had_ changed. Yes, the Ministry was gone, and the southern goblins no longer needed to operate in its shadow. They could reveal how much strength they truly had, because there was no organized force that could punish them, and when they revealed their reasons, most people, to object, would have to admit their contrary allegiances aloud.

"If you are sure that it will not involve danger to your people," Griselda said, one final time.

"There is danger." The _hanarz's_ teeth and chains both gleamed when she smiled. "But we have the arrows to meet it."

Griselda nodded, and began to feel the first stirrings of a plan in her own head. _I can help them. I can be their spokesperson, as well as join the new Wizengamot when it forms. Perhaps I am not much more than a figurehead in a battle such as this—I am too old to truly fight—but, by Merlin, I can be the most excellent figurehead that there is, and somewhat compensate for Juniper's dead weight._

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

The truth was written in the stars. Every young centaur knew that. What they did not understand, what it took them years to understand as they rose from foals, was the many kinds of truth inscribed there. That on which Mars shone was not the same as that marked by Orion, and of course a comet introduced many doubts and ambiguities that had taken celebrated astronomers decades to work out.

But the astronomers had worked it out long since, mapped the movements of the sky, and while events changed on earth, the stars and the planets, the moon and the sun, and all the other dancers of the heavens marked out the relations of those changes to what had come before. They were continuity. They united future and past and present, and they permitted the leaders of herds to act in ways that blind humans would never understand.

Such were the thoughts that ran through Moon's head as he stood on a rise in the Forest and looked up at the bright stars. Yes, they spoke of troubles still to come, perhaps even ones that would cost them the _vates_, and certainly ones that would cost some of his people their lives.

That did not matter. They had sworn. That swearing was in the stars, and so was the outcome. If they could not yet read it, they had once read outcomes like it, and the centaurs had survived those. So long as one of their kind lived on earth, there was a continuation for them. And so long as the stars shone, the knowledge could not truly die.

Moon turned and cantered towards the Glade. His people were waiting for him, spears and scythes in their hands.

"Polaris shines," he said.

They bowed their heads and all sank to one knee, less in awe of him than the message he carried, the truth he conveyed. Moon looked up again, at the bright North Star, shining free even as the clouds raced about it.

He brought one hoof down sternly. Polaris shone, and its path changed the least of any star in the sky. The message was clear.

Humans might imagine eternity all they liked. Centaurs knew it.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Minerva was convinced that Poppy must have poured half the potions in the hospital wing down her throat by now. She coughed on the latest one, a particularly foul-tasting liquid that seemed inclined to make her forget her heart attack by burning her throat, and thrust out a hand.

"That is _enough_," she said. "I am Headmistress of this school, and I say that you must stop."

Poppy eyed her and snorted, unimpressed. "You almost died," she said tartly, and reached for another vial.

"You can't command me—" Minerva started.

"You will _die_ if you go into battle again."

Minerva blinked, and leaned back against her pillows. That certainly hadn't been what she thought she would hear.

"Go on," she said.

"Your heart has been too strained." Poppy clutched the potion vial to herself as if she were speaking of the end of the world, but her words were those Minerva used with the slowest students in Transfiguration, the ones who could not grasp the simplest of spells even when they saw the incantation demonstrated multiple times. "You could have a heart attack now from the sheer stress and excitement of battle. And there won't always be someone nearby to use the Life Jolt and bring you back to your feet."

Minerva studied her in silence. Then she said, "And if I say that this is a risk I understand and accept?"

Poppy clenched her hands around the vial. "You should ask yourself if the contribution you can make in battle is worth depriving Hogwarts of its Headmistress."

Life had certainly been easier when she was Dumbledore's Deputy Headmistress, Minerva thought grumpily to herself. Much as she hated it, she doubted most people would trust Severus to assume the post of Deputy Headmaster and lead the school in her place.

"I suppose not," she said.

Poppy curved her hand around her ear in sheer annoying parody. Minerva knew the matron had heard what she said. She shook her head and leaned back against the pillow. "I suppose not," she repeated. "I will stay behind in case of battle. Though I do wonder what will happen if the time comes when paperwork will do no good, and my wand is needed."

"Trust someone else to tell you when those times are," said Poppy darkly, coming to her and pouring the potion down her throat before Minerva could object. "Don't trust your own judgment."

Minerva would have protested the unfairness of this, but the potion was apparently enchanted to travel straight to her stomach, and to cut off consciousness as soon as it reached there. Her eyes closed, and if Poppy continued to scold her, she never heard the words.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Millicent rose to her feet, one hand clutched around the side of a crystalline stone ring. The rock resembled quartz, but the ring had come out of the vault of Bulstrode treasures, so it was almost certainly something rarer. Millicent hadn't cared to find out. What mattered was that this was the ring that her ancestors had used to join courting couples for centuries on end.

Pierre Delacour held the other side of the ring and looked at her anxiously across it.

"If I gave up my name," said Millicent simply, "it would mean the extinction of the direct line of the Bulstrode family. I have a cousin in France who may be able to take up the burden of carrying our legacy, but I consider her an unworthy heir for any but the most extreme circumstances. Meanwhile, you have numerous cousins and siblings and other relatives who can carry on the name of Delacour. Will you do me the honor, Pierre, of becoming Pierre Bulstrode?"

From the calm expression on his face, he'd expected this, and wasn't even particularly upset. Perhaps he wasn't attached to the Delacour name. He nodded. "I will accept your name, my wife."

"Good." Millicent stepped forward and bent over the ring, kissing him. It was a hard kiss, stony—a good kiss for a Bulstrode marriage to begin with, she thought. Pierre's relatives, gathered solemnly about them in this underground chamber beneath the Bulstrode home, burst into applause.

Millicent nodded to them and joined hands with Pierre, the crystalline stone ring now encircling both their wrists, binding them together as one. Cousins and aunts and Pierre's parents came forward to offer their congratulations. Millicent felt a pulse of regret that Elfrida could not be here to see her daughter get married, but she and Marian had already transformed into statues in another Bulstrode vault, charmed against aging and warded with curses.

Besides, Bulstrodes didn't do sentiment. Millicent wished that Elfrida could have been here more for her mother's sake than her own. She was not born to the hard, proud traditions that Adalrico had valued and taught his daughter and heir.

Pierre looked at her now and then with trepidation, but with no diminishing in the adoration of his gaze. Millicent was glad of that. All she needed was a husband who thought only of romance and didn't focus on the practical difficulties and advantages of getting married in a time of war.

As soon as the last relative had kissed her and wrung Pierre's hand and exclaimed over the both of them, Millicent nodded to them and took up the Portkey that would bear them to the house's inner bedroom. The world blurred, and then Pierre was sitting down hard on the side of the bed, staring around at the dark walls and the shrouded portraits that hung on them. The portraits were motionless, rather than the more common wizarding pictures that hung elsewhere in the house. It was thought that Bulstrode ancestors should be with their descendants on the wedding nights, but there was no need for them to actually watch the consummation, Millicent thought as she put the Portkey away. They could be there in spirit, and it was still just as meaningful.

"Millicent?"

"Yes?" She undid the black ribbons binding her hair—a mixture of mourning and a concession to the finery of the occasion—and sat down next to Pierre, removing the ring from their wrists at last. It had burned both their wrists, painlessly on Pierre's part, with pain on hers. But the agony had been so small compared to anything she'd had to bear in recent months, she'd barely noticed it.

Pierre put up his hands, clasped hers, and kissed their interlocking fingers. "I promise to be a good husband to you," he said. "And a good Bulstrode. And a good father of the heir that you will carry in your belly after this night."

Millicent relaxed. She had been afraid, given his reaction to the wedding—

But that was silly of her. He would not have agreed to marry her if he didn't find strength attractive. Besides, even if she had been wrong about him, it was too late to go back now. Bulstrodes didn't divorce, because of centuries in which the option hadn't existed. They put down their heads and endured.

Now, she kissed him back, on the lips, and then pushed him gently flat on the bed, and began the process of both knowing her husband and securing their future, in the form of the heir she _would_ carry after this. The fertility spells and charms she'd cast on herself were not about to fail.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Parvati spoke calmly to her parents through the hospital wing fireplace. She couldn't deny their right to be worried, after what they had heard about the Ministry, but she thought it almost funny that they _were_ so worried when she hadn't been one of the people caught in that wrack.

"Yes, Mother, I'm fine, actually. So is Padma. We never even got a chance to fight. It was all Lord-level wizardry, no spells." She sighed at the thought of it. Was it any wonder that people became discouraged about what they could contribute to this war, when it was Harry and the wild Dark fighting Voldemort half the time? "Except Connor using a spell to save the Headmistress's life, of course."

Sita's eyes were wide and pleading. "Parvati, are you sure that you and your sister won't consider coming home?"

"Not yet, Mother." Parvati sat back from the fireplace, winding a curl of hair around her finger. "It's simply not possible, not with what we want to be and do. How could we leave our lovers in danger while we fled to safety?" She ignored Sita's wince at the mention of "lovers." Her parents obviously still hadn't recovered from the list Parvati and Padma had sent them of their "activities" that proved the strict definition of virginity, at least, no longer applied to them.

"But if they love you, they would want you to be safe." Sita leaned forward. "We want you to be safe, and we love you. They also love you. Why wouldn't they want you to be safe?"

Parvati laughed a little. "Well, most of the time you might have a point, Mother. But Luna doesn't regard safety in the same way most people do, and Connor wants me there so I can fight _beside_ him." She felt a little thrill in her stomach at the thought. Her boyfriend wasn't someone whose sense of self-worth came from protecting other people so much as relying on them. She had always thought that Harry would make a horrible boyfriend in that respect. "Even if I can't fight in every battle, I can help defend the school, and teach other people spells, and heal the wounded as they fall on the field. That's what I want to do. This is what I want to be. And people who love others can also be happy when those others find something they want to do."

"It's very hard for us to put up with this, Parvati," Sita whispered. "Please, please understand that."

"I do," said Parvati. "But, equally, it's hard for me and Padma to put up with being protected all the time. Please understand that."

Sita closed her eyes, and didn't reply. A moment later, the Floo connection closed.

Parvati shrugged and rose to her feet. They were in for some hard times, doubtless, now that the Ministry had fallen. But they would fight through them, and survive as best as they could, and help others in the doing so. That was what life was all about.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry had called everyone to Hogwarts who could come: those Aurors not absolutely needed to defend the safehouses, Kanerva, Laura Gloryflower and her contingent of artificial winged horses and their riders, Augusta Longbottom, and those allies and families of his allies not already living in the school. They needed to make plans. He had already compiled a list of wizarding villages in order of vulnerability, which depended on their size, their wards, their locations, and the number of their defenders, among other things. Most would be evacuated, with many people going to France, and some going to Ireland, which would be a stopping place in transition to, of all countries, Iceland. But the Icelandic wizards had offered, via a snowy owl that had arrived after what looked like a nonstop flight, and Harry was hardly going to resist the offer or ask if they were sure.

Not now.

He'd spoken with at least one person from each village, eased them past the immediate panicky transition when they wanted to scream and run in circles over the Ministry's fall, and made them listen to his plans for evacuation, or vanishing into a safehouse where they didn't want to leave Britain. They'd mostly listened to him. A few were still screaming. Harry would leave them for the morning.

He'd given the word to those who had not heard it, by firecall or phoenix song communication spell where he could, by owl where he must, and directed Skeeter to do the best she could with the news. Not everyone would listen. Some people would blame him. He would have to live with that as it came down, just as he would have to live with the certain attempts to sabotage the new coalition government. Some of them would come from Juniper.

In one corner of his mind, the guilt burned like acid, and it seemed to have dripped down to the deepest corners of his being.

But there was no time for open mourning, just as there was no time for extensive coddling of any one person. Harry had to treat them like responsible adults and rely on them for those things they should be able to do. For the most part, they had responded to the treatment well, even seeming to draw confidence from it, as if his belief in them made it so.

But that acid was there, dripping. Harry had never so much wished for his emotionless training back.

He didn't know what was going to happen tomorrow. He didn't know how soon Voldemort, irritated by the wild Dark and maddened by Harry's escape from him, would strike. He didn't know how much magic was left to Voldemort, either.

He opened his bedroom door, and found Draco sitting on their bed, waiting for him. Harry paused, staring at him.

Draco stared back.

Then he opened his arms.

Harry swallowed, twice, only to find that he couldn't speak any more. Carefully, he crept to Draco and laid his head on his shoulder, closing his eyes. He had thought he would cry when he had the time, but so many tears had built up that it seemed he couldn't shed a single one. He just lay there, dry-eyed, in the one place and with the one person whom he could trust to support him.

Draco lay back, stroking his hair and saying nothing.

At some point, the acid ceased to drip, and Harry fled from thoughts of death and defeat and responsibility and killing himself into sleep.


	61. Hawthorn's Dream

**Chapter Forty-Eight: Hawthorn's Dream**

What he had to do now, Harry told himself, was stay very, very sane. That way, he would not go either enraged or mad when someone spoke to him the way Snape had just spoken to him now.

"I chose the name Black because I meant to if I was ever cornered," he said calmly now. He was very calm. It helped that they stood in Snape's office, where he had spent many happy and _serene_ hours brewing potions. "Had I had longer to think, I'm not sure what I would have chosen. Perhaps none."

"And why did Regulus's name come to you first in a dangerous situation?" Snape demanded.

Harry stared at him. _He's—jealous?_

From the glint in Snape's dark eyes, that was the problem. Harry decided not to let on that he'd noticed. It was such a ridiculous thing to be jealous of that he wouldn't know how to respond if Snape demanded a response.

"It was the name of the family, rather than the man," he said. "After all, that was Sirius's surname, too, and I felt anything but safe around him in the last months of his life." He didn't let the words truly sink into his brain. He had all the guilt and all the longing to die he could handle. "I'm already Regulus's legal heir, and I've been sheltered and protected—and sheltered and protected my people, too—in the Black houses. So that was a matter of practicality, and my short-term plan. I would have liked to make the choice more freely. That's not what happened, though." He hesitated, then said it because it had to be said. "Please, sir, don't scold me for this. I need you too much for other things."

Snape left the subject, but reached out and captured his chin in one hand, tilting his face up. Harry held his breath as he felt the Legilimency gently skim the surface of his thoughts. _Please don't notice, please don't notice…_

"I am one of your refuges in this, then?" Snape looked guardedly pleased.

_That, I don't mind him seeing. _Harry nodded. "You and Draco, sir. Connor, too, to an extent, but I'm not sure he understands why I blame myself for the Ministry. You both do. Please know that you'll always be important in my life."

He hoped that would content Snape. He only had so much energy to parcel out, and giving Snape and Draco the majority of it, while proper, left him drained of energy with which to reassure others.

"And your other refuge?"

_Shit._ "What other refuge?" Harry thought he could play dumb. Snape might simply be trying to trick him into admitting more. It didn't mean he'd actually seen anything in Harry's mind.

"There is a thought of a third place to hide in your mind, a third thing that strengthens you, though I cannot make out its nature." Snape's eyes had gone hooded, but still pierced him like the fang of a viper. "I want to know what it is."

Harry hesitated again, torn between his promise not to lie to Draco and Snape about his emotions, and the fact that he would face disapproval of his spoke the truth. Then he sighed. "It doesn't mean that I'll do it," he said. "I know I can't. And it doesn't involve suppressing my emotions. It just involves—thinking about what I would do if I was a different person, had a different life."

"_What is it, Harry._" Snape did not make it a question, and his voice sounded deep, rather than angry.

"Just—thoughts of death." Harry shrugged, then rushed on while Snape stared at him. "I _know_ I can't die. All the people I love, all the promises I made, the fight against Voldemort, all demand that I stay alive. I _know_ that. But if I were a different person, and I felt as guilty as I do now, I could kill myself and get it over with. Sacrifice my life for a Horcrux, for example. That's _all_. I promise. It's just something I like to think about. Not something I would actually do."

Snape said nothing. Harry relaxed, bit by bit. He might be able to think of nothing to say.

He might actually understand.

Harry hoped for that. He knew the difference between fantasy and reality. He knew he couldn't kill himself, that too much rode his shoulders.

_Please, please don't take this away from me. I know what I have to do. I've known since third year. This—this is just a place in my mind where I like to vanish sometimes. Let me have it._

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Hawthorn woke late, with thoughts and memories scrambled and drifting in her mind. She lay staring at the ceiling for a long moment, trying to decide why her dream mattered so much to her when such bad news had come from the Ministry yesterday. Surely she ought to live in the world that the news defined, not the one that her thoughts did.

And then the full force of her dream returned.

Hawthorn literally jumped out of bed, then nearly went sprawling as a sheet caught her foot. She kicked it off, limped into her potions lab, and went towards notes she'd made months ago, blowing the dust off them. She hadn't worked in the potions lab since she returned, and the Aurors hadn't had a chance to damage it, so she had done only the most basic cleaning spells in here.

The dreams weren't entirely dreams, of course. Voldemort's mind had woven through hers. She had lost most of the memories that might be useful—where the burrow was, for example—but others, odd bits of information that she picked up in conversation and eavesdropping, still remained to her. Some of them concerned the potions Adalrico had brewed and improved for Voldemort.

And combined with the knowledge she'd had in the months before her enslavement—

Combined with the visionary force of the dream that had struck her—

One piece of that puzzle might help her to figure out this one.

Hawthorn flung her pyjama sleeve over one arm and bent to begin writing. She _had_ to write now, or she feared the dream would vanish.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Indigena had recovered only slowly from the Stone's winter. Most of the flowers in her body still wanted to sleep. Cold spoke of hard times for them, months when the roots survived but the bright petals had to fold, or wither and blow away. It was only with the greatest difficulty that Indigena kept her eyes open as she stood attendance on her Lord.

The atmosphere in the burrow didn't help, either.

Voldemort's magic brewed like a potion, sang and hissed like a serpent forced into hibernation early, slid around her like the edge of a vine she didn't control. Indigena sat with her head bowed and resting on her knees, her arms looped around them, her breathing slow and steady. Meanwhile, the enormous might darkened the sky and made the walls of the burrow tremble at odd moments, as if they would fall in on her.

This was the true reason a wizard should not have so much magic, Indigena believed. Not that there was a problem with it inherently, or that anyone was incapable of maintaining his morality in the face of such power, but because of the discomfort it caused for other wizards and witches to be around that person.

Sylvan and Oaken showed less discomfort, but then, they were out of the burrow most of the time, capturing more Muggleborn children and bringing them back for Voldemort to drain. The soul-pattern in the largest room grew bigger and bigger. The basilisks stirred in their eggs under the warm sand. The Dark Lord brooded.

As soon as the warmth increased to the point where her flowers could open, Indigena promised herself, she would step outside. She could not bear to be in here much longer.

Besides, if she understood the bargain Voldemort had struck with the wild Dark correctly, he couldn't make another attack until Midwinter, still a month away. The thought of enduring this poison for thirty days made Indigena's skin crawl, and brought to her delicious, wistful thoughts of the gardens and greenhouses in Thornhall, so far away.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Hawthorn swallowed. The potion required a swan feather, and she didn't think she had one. But she could, of course, track down and trap a swan. She knew where they swam.

She just wondered if it was worth pursuing, if this entire potion was worth brewing. Did she stand on the brink of a great discovery, or of death, because of a fever dream she didn't want to take the time to investigate properly?

Then she pushed the thought away. She _knew_ the dream was real. The sheer force of it had settled on her mind like a lead weight, and she'd worked like a madwoman since dawn, brewing and mixing and writing notes and casting spells into the potion at the perfect moment. She knew the limitations of the recipe, but she also believed she might have found a way around them. No, she _knew_ she'd found a way around them. So she could not stop this.

_Even if it kills you?_

Hawthorn shrugged, and stood, reaching for her cloak. She would find a pond or a river where a swan swam, and get the feather.

In the back of her head was the thought that her life was worth little anyway, if she could not manage to make up in some way for the harm she had done in Voldemort's service—and the reason she had done that harm.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry stood patiently on the Northumbrian beach that had seen several of the important things that happened in his life—sailing ships at Midsummer with James, fighting Voldemort on the day he tried to command the sirens to capture Muggles, riding with the unicorns. It was a relatively deserted place, with the natural magic keeping Muggles from noticing that it was uninhabited or venturing there in large numbers. The presence of northern goblins nearby, and the wards at Lux Aeterna, Harry thought, might have something to do with that, too.

It was here that the people of the first wizarding village to be evacuated, tiny Torpenhow, had come to meet the French ships.

Harry had been surprised at first to learn that they would leave by ship instead of Apparating, but then he'd realized that most of the residents of Torpenhow were weaker wizards and witches unsure of their ability to Apparate between countries, and children. It was simply easier and quieter for them to be taken across the Channel in French ships, especially since not many magical creatures had elected to flee Britain.

The ships themselves, constructed by the Veela Council, looked like nothing human. Harry eyed the one that stood off the beach with some wonder. It had flaring wings, and a prow that blended directly into the figurehead, a seagull's fierce projecting beak and glaring eyes. The whole of it was white, and shimmered with a silver tinge, rather like Veela hair. The sails belled and danced to a wind that Harry did not think was natural.

The boats rowing in from the ship looked more ordinary, with Veela or part-Veela in each one. As they ground up on the gray sand, people leaped out to help the villagers inside. Harry raised his magic and looked around alertly. He was there mostly to make sure Voldemort did not attack in the middle of the transfer, when most people would be helpless to do more than cower or seek to protect the children and belongings that had come with them.

Only his own dread darkened the horizon, though, and most of the villagers, solemn and silent and white-faced in the middle of abandoning their home, entered the boats without a hitch. The Veela helped them in, singing under their breaths sometimes, a tune that had the sound of a dirge. Harry could see why. Veela were, supposedly, terribly attached to a home once they had chosen it, and at once honored the strength of those who could leave their own homes and mourned the necessity of it.

"Harry?"

He turned, to see Adrienne Delacour, Fleur's and Pierre's cousin, striding towards him. Behind her came Roxane, the official representative of the Veela Council. Roxane's face was tight. Harry tensed, wondering if something had happened.

Roxane spoke to him first, and without a shred of courtesy. But then, Harry had thought she was a woman like that since their first meeting. "It is true that the British government is fallen, and you have no Minister?"

"We have Acting Minister Erasmus Juniper," said Harry, wondering how they could have known one piece of news but not the other. "He escaped the ruin of the Ministry. If your Minister would like to be in contact with him—"

"It is not that." Roxane shook her head hard enough that some of her own hair hit her in the face. "But we do not trust him. It is a bad time for Britain to have no leader. Therefore, you are the leader, yes? France will deal with you as such. The Veela Council will deal with you as such."

Harry shifted his shoulders back and forth while he thought about that. Then he shrugged. He doubted he could keep people in France from thinking of him as Britain's leader if they really wanted to do so. What he _could_ prevent was people coming to him for information that he couldn't provide, or decisions he couldn't make.

"My words won't have the force of law," he pointed out. "I couldn't make treaties, or allocate funds, or give France promises that would hold after the war."

"If we choose to take it as the force of law, it will," said Roxane. "The money, no, but I have heard of the goblins and how they respect the _vates_. They may give you money if you ask for it. We need someone who can _speak_ for Britain, whose voice we can trust, and whom we can negotiate with as the seasons and the situation change."

Harry frowned. "Why? If you don't mind my asking, what is wrong with the arrangements that the French Minister and the Veela Council have created for me so far?"

"Voldemort is coming." If Roxane feared the Dark Lord, she didn't show it, but then, she seemed more interested in practicalities than in fear. "That will require a closer alliance between us. France will send more Aurors. They will send food, if needed. Money, if needed."

Harry stared at her. After the decision by the International Confederation of Warlocks that he had to stop violating the Statute of Secrecy, he had been sure he wouldn't receive any more help from abroad. It was one thing for France to help him on the sly, another for them to openly defy the governing body of wizards—especially when the Acting British Minister was still alive.

"Why?" he asked.

"Voldemort will invade our shores," said Roxane, "if he defeats you. He will come for us first, since we are closest to him. And while the others might not worry about that, they will not come to help us, either, if they do not come to help you. We are making sure that your victory takes place on the soil of your land, not on the soil of ours."

Harry licked his lips. He supposed he had taken up a large share of the responsibility already.

But they had counted on using Juniper as a figurehead. That wouldn't be possible if he heard about Harry accepting part of the power that should rightfully be his. He might not start a civil war, but he wouldn't eat the reassuring lies that people like Cupressus wanted to feed him.

"I regret to say that I can't give you an answer right now," he said quietly. "I will stand security for any promises I make, but as of the moment I am making them for myself and the Alliance of Sun and Shadows, not for my country as a whole. There are wizards even now who prefer not to be allied with me, you know, or to come under my protection. They believe it would cost them too much."

"Then they are fools," said Roxane. "Know that the French government does not intend to accept your Acting Minister. Power and practicality are harder masters than political delicacy. We will work with none other than the _vates_." And she turned back to the ships as if a discussion had concluded.

Harry shook his head. He would have to seek Cupressus's and Miriam Smith's advice. He had not the slightest idea how he could take the leadership but convince Juniper that he was still in charge. The Minister was stupid, but he knew how to read the newspapers, and he saw treason in every shadow.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Hawthorn grabbed the Stupefied swan as it drifted towards shore and spread one wing wide, plucking the feather from it. Originally, she'd intended to kill the bird, but she felt compelled not to now. Let it live. It hadn't done her any harm, and sometimes a slight aura of power, almost like a willing sacrifice, could be added to potions ingredients harvested from a living animal. The collector could have killed it, but had chosen not to, and the magic would know and remember that.

And it would be appropriate, given what the purpose of the potion she was brewing was.

For a moment, Hawthorn lost herself in hope, standing there with the feather in one hand and the swan's wing in the other, and she still stood like that when her Stunner wore off. Then she had to duck to avoid a blow from the swan that could have broken either her neck or her arm.

The swan hissed at her as it swam back into the middle of the river, shaking its tail and settling several ruffled feathers.

Hawthorn sniffed as she Apparated again. She was allowed to think they were evil birds. There was no rule against that.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Owen paced along the walls, carefully enchanting them. When wards were up around the doors, the windows, and the broken pieces of furniture in the middle of the room, his twin finally rolled his eyes and broke the silence.

"And what do you think you're doing?" he demanded, folding his arms.

"Blocking the way out." Owen turned around, bouncing his wand lightly in his hand, and looked Michael straight in the eye. "You won't get away from me this time. You're run every time I tried to corner you and talk to you in the last few days, but not now."

Michael rolled his eyes again. "It could just be that I have nothing to talk with you about, Owen. How hard is that to comprehend?"

"I know that you have something to say on the subject of Harry," Owen replied. "The way that you stare at him conveys _that_. He hasn't noticed, thank Merlin, what with everything else that he has to do, but he may emerge from his haze and notice fairly soon. Have you thought—"

"What is it with you and your sympathy for him?" Michael gave his hair a shake that would have done credit to a wild pony. "Has it occurred to you, Owen, that I've suffered too? What about the people who lost family and friends in the Ministry? _They're_ the victims, here. They're the ones you should be worried about, if you want to be worried about someone. Not Harry. He survives disaster after disaster, and still everyone loves him." Owen knew he hadn't imagined the undertone of resentment in Michael's voice. "He has all the sympathy he can handle. Everyone loves him, everyone admires him. Why don't you spend some sympathy on me, and our dead mother and sister?" Michael took a step forward. "Sometimes, I think you forget that we're brothers, forget your obligation to the family."

Owen sighed. He should have insisted that his father give Michael an education more similar to the one he'd received after all. Charles hadn't thought his second son needed it; he would have a different life. But now he was Owen's heir, and not even the wound of Medusa and Eos's loss, which should have been shared between them, had made them bleed the same blood. Michael was too much a child. He didn't understand that while he spoke what might have been the truth for _him_, Owen's oath to Harry meant Harry would have to come first in his life.

"I forget nothing," he said quietly. "But I'm both family head and sworn companion right now. And while there aren't any Rosier-Henlin relatives to protect since they all fled, and it would be madness to defend our lands, I'm spending my energy on protecting Harry." He pushed towards his main reason for the meeting. "Actually, Michael, I wanted to ask if you would take my place as head of the Rosier-Henlin family. That would both relieve me of an obligation and make sure that someone who _does_ care and does have the time is taking care of Rosier-Henlin interests." _And it would give you something else to think about than Draco and Harry, _he thought, though he didn't say that aloud.

And it would be the perfect situation for Michael to learn about adult responsibilities, too, since there virtually were none at the moment. He could study the dances he'd need to know, the rituals, and what it would mean when the war ended and he did have people to protect and meetings to attend as a head of the family. Owen wanted a long period between the first time his brother cracked a book and the first time he tried to put what he'd learned into practice.

Michael folded his arms and looked away.

Owen blinked. Twice. "You're going to say no, aren't you?" he demanded.

"Of course." Michael looked faintly bored when he turned back. "I have ambitions that don't involve our family, Owen. You know that."

"I thought it was the one thing you did still care about. With the way that you talked about our mother and sister—"

"You thought wrong. Who I am isn't defined by my blood. It doesn't begin and end with my last name." Michael's face was firmly closed, and stubbornly set.

"Then what do you want?" Owen feared that answer.

"Just a little sympathy." Michael's eyes glittered. "Just a little consideration. Just a little _remembrance_ that I won't do what everyone else wants me to do, when they want me to do it. I'm not a toy." He lifted his wand. "Now, take these spells off the room, or I'll blast them down."

Owen stood gazing at his twin for a moment longer. It seemed so long since they'd shared a single brain. Not since Michael had become infatuated with Draco, at least, and that had happened soon after the Midsummer battle.

In the end, he had to shake his head and let Michael out. As he watched him go down the hall, he wondered if Michael himself knew what he wanted.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Hawthorn gazed and gazed at the potion on her desk, which sparkled a smooth, liquid silver, and didn't vanish when she turned her back, though she half-expected it to.

If she had done it correctly, she had bypassed the potion's limitations. She had cast part of her magic into the potion, but she'd used a shortcut that Adalrico had used on some potions where he didn't have Snape's native brewing skill. He'd chosen an enchanted artifact and dissolved the artifact slowly in a blend of acids. There was a flickering moment between the dissolving and the moment when the artifact ceased to exist at all when a spell would capture the magic and make it behave like the wizard's or witch's own power.

Adalrico had used that to compensate for his lack of reflexes and innate genius with potions. Under the magic of the artifact, volatile ingredients would sit together quietly. Hawthorn had used that captured magic to infect the potion, and make it think that she was sacrificing a great portion of her own strength.

And so, if she were right, if she could trust the force of the dream that had come to her, she would have her long desire in her hands.

Of course, there was also the fact that it might kill her, given that a large part of its ingredients consisted of pure silver from Sickles she'd melted.

After a moment, she picked up the vial. Her hand trembled.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

"I don't see any way that we can keep Juniper from newspapers," Harry said through the fireplace. Cupressus's plan to keep the Acting Minister as isolated as possible, telling him it was for his own safety, and only bring him out when the occasion demanded, was a good one, but Harry was not sure how practical it would be to use from day to day. "Nor from asserting his own idiocy if someone shouts out a question to him while he's making his speeches."

"I can control what newspapers he receives," said Cupressus calmly. "So far, he has made no attempt to leave the house. He believes me when I tell him of his countless lurking enemies."

"And when he _does_ want to leave?" Harry asked.

Cupressus shook his head. "His home was laid waste. I believe that the Yaxley twins went there looking for him. And given how stupid Erasmus is, that was actually a good tactic. For now, he believes me when I tell him there is no safer place for him than with the leader of the British part of the Light alliance, and a fellow member of the Order of the Firebird."

Harry, a bit appeased, returned to one of his original concerns. "And when the _Daily Prophet_ reports on the Minister of France deciding to treat me as the leader of Britain? He'll read _that_, of course."

"You underestimate the wards on my home." Cupressus smiled a bit. "I am an old hand at politics, Mr.—Black, and in my day, there were people who would pay to know what my letters said when they left the house. I have wards that change the words on every piece of paper to make them say what I wish them to say. The _Prophet_ articles will become harmless long before Erasmus sees them."

It was the best compromise they could find, Harry thought. And he certainly didn't want to refuse the French Minister's aid for the sake of one man's comfort, as compared to all the people who could use the food and the funds that the French might be able to send them.

"Accept the position, Black."

Surprised, Harry looked up with a blink. Cupressus had actually leaned towards him, as if about to extend a hand through the green flames, and his face had lost the smile. His eyes glinted, though, the hard look of a predatory bird riding a windstorm.

"It will benefit all of us," Cupressus went on. "At the moment, we need to look more like a unified group than a coalition to keep our people from panicking, even if we know the truth behind the scenes. One wizard whom the international community speaks with, whom the Light and Dark families follow, and whom Voldemort fears is a good thing. It will make us seem as if we know what we are doing, more than anything else. And that, in turn, will tame the reports that filter out, both at home and abroad."

Harry let out a breath. "It's still precarious. Juniper could find out at any time, and cause havoc."

"Risky, but worth the risk." Cupressus's eyes glinted again. "And if it comes to that, I would rather silence Erasmus than lose you and the command of the war."

Harry decided not to ask what "silence" meant. He really didn't want to know. Besides, he didn't think that Cupressus's ethics would let him murder the Acting Minister.

_Probably_.

"Very well," he said, and then stepped away from the flames and shut the Floo connection down with a nod to Cupressus. Despite the man's wise words, there were only so many things that newspaper articles and calm announcements could do. Britain was still reeling under a psychological wound, the loss of their people and their government only slowly sinking home.

It would need something greater than calm words to heal that wound.

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

It began as fire.

Her bones were iron, melting in a forge. Her blood had become silver, and it scored and scalded her skin, which itself was not much less painful than burning water. Her mind melted and slipped, and she saw life as a pit of brilliant white light into which she fell. She tumbled down, and she knew she was screaming, but she could not hear anything beyond the intense blaze. It was as if sight had taken the place of sound, and crowded out her other senses—except for touch, of course, and the nerves that carried the pain signals.

It turned to water.

She drowned under crushing pressure, the ocean descending on her head, making her ears ring, bursting her eardrums with the weight. She welcomed the return of sound, but her scream was still a rusty noise somewhere in the distance. She struggled madly and felt the struggles become fainter and fainter, yielding to reality.

It hurt more than any transformation. That was part of the point, of course, and the reason why the potion stood such a high chance of killing her. The human body, strengthened by the curse, could become a werewolf at the full of the moon and change back again—with a great deal of pain, naturally, but non-fatally, most of the time. This time, Hawthorn had nothing but her own will to stand against the pain.

And she could not lose consciousness. She had to guide the potion, tied to the portion of her sacrificed magic that remained inside the liquid. Lose her concentration, and it would not know what it was supposed to do. The molten silver would run rampant, react badly against the werewolf curse in her blood—well, worse than it was already reacting—and slay her.

She remained awake, from moment to moment, existing in a world of pain, and of utmost dedication.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry sang from the top of the Astronomy Tower, his head tilted back and the phoenix song flowing from his throat.

The last time he had done this, he had done it to remind people of his rebellion and the magical creatures waiting for wizards to acknowledge them. This time, the purpose was both simpler and broader: to remind people of the existence of hope. To give them a moment free of grief, if he could. To tell them that Light still existed in the world.

This time, he rose with the song, hanging at a point in the air high above Hogwarts before his consciousness fragmented and raced away with different sparks of light speeding in different directions, rather like falling stars.

He danced out across the Forbidden Forest, and the centaurs looked up as he passed overhead and stamped their hooves in time. Other voices joined theirs, curling around the trees of the Forest, singing a song that Harry had not heard for years. The first time he had gone running through the Forest, accompanying Remus and Sirius as they took Connor for a run, the creatures had sensed the presence of the _vates_ and responded. This time, their voices were more solemn, reflecting both the triumphs and the losses in the years since, including the loss of the phoenix who had flown with him then, but still they resounded.

He flew to Ireland, and raced into the middle of a meeting of Light wizards discussing if they should listen to Cupressus and ally with Harry. They went still as they heard. One or two shook their heads, evidently trying to dismiss it as a persuasive tactic, but the rest of them had softened faces, and one woman put her head down on the table and wept.

There was water beneath the phoenix song, and another ship coming from France heard. Harry saw heads tilt back as if the Veela could pinpoint the exact source of the song, the single trailing point of light that soared over them and on towards the east, across Europe, where Harry soon gave up trying to follow it; the number of people and places that appeared was dizzying.

The refugees still in the safehouse at Cobley-by-the-Sea came to the windows and looked out. One small girl asked her mother if the sunset was singing.

Molly Weasley stood still, and closed her eyes, and put down the towel with which she'd dried dishes. Her husband, absent from the Ministry two days before by the merest of chances, came up behind her and put his arms around her waist, resting his chin on her shoulder.

Kanerva laughed and danced in the winds high above Britain. The song mattered to her, but more important was the sheer fascination that lingered in the dark beyond the stars. The wild Dark heard, and wanted the voice. It amused Kanerva because she knew them both, audience and singer, so well, and she laughed to show that she did, if anyone else knew her private language.

Jing-Xi arrived again in the room at Hogwarts that she had nearly made her own. She paused. The mantle behind her turned to jade.

Laura Gloryflower wheeled on a winged silver horse high above the ground, patrolling a wizarding village that would have to await its turn to evacuate until more safehouses in France could be opened up. She bowed her head, clenched her hand into a fist, and held the fist to her heart. This was the voice, the essence, of the Light that she had sworn to serve.

A scrap of awareness, caught and drifting on the wind, turned in the direction of the phoenix song. It reminded the ghost who had been Aurora Whitestag of—well, of something she had forgotten. After a moment, she shook her head and moved on. She had only one purpose, and she could not forsake the premise of her existence.

Michael Rosier-Henlin turned his head away, and closed the shutters of the window through which he'd heard the song.

Draco lifted his head and soaked it in. He would have grabbed anyone else standing next to him, paralyzed with wonder, and bragged that he was dating the man who sang like that, but they all knew already, and in any case he was close to being paralyzed with wonder himself.

Regulus stopped sorting through artifacts in Silver-Mirror and sat back for a time, his eyes blankly and contentedly staring into the fire.

Connor closed his eyes and held Parvati.

From person to person, from magical creature to wizard, from ocean to land, Harry strung the song, and tried his best to make a point of hope glow in the sky next to every star.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Hawthorn opened her eyes slowly. The first thing she noticed was that she hurt more than she had when Lucius bound her in silver shackles, or used the _Argenteus_ curse on her.

The second thing she noticed was the stillness in her own mind.

She sat up, frowning. What had changed? The empty potions vial beside her reminded her of what she had _meant_ to do, but she could not tell if it had worked. She reached up and felt her temple, shaking her head. The faith that had carried her into the experiment seemed mad now. How could she have risked her life over a dream?

And then she knew what was different.

Her mind was still. The muttering, savage voice of her wolf, that spoke constantly of blood and darkness and the need to kill, was gone.

She had succeeded in curing herself of lycanthropy.

Her head found her folded arms, and she wept.


	62. Delegation, Darkness, and Draco

**Chapter Forty-Nine: Delegation, Darkness, and Draco**

Erasmus knew they thought him stupid, but in reality, he was more intelligent than all of them. He looked into the shadows, and knew them for the distractions they were.

Cupressus and the rest might think they could make some sort of compromise with the Dark. Let Dark wizards soothe them with sweet words, talk to them about politics that combined the two allegiances, and offer them help against Voldemort, and they would nod and give in. They couldn't deal with the destruction of the Ministry. It was a cancer in their minds, and in an effort to ignore the cancer, they gave in to the power that had destroyed it.

One couldn't trust Dark wizards. Erasmus had known that. He'd tried to tell the others that. And now they said that it was just _one_ kind of Dark wizard, Voldemort's kind, that couldn't be trusted, while the others had a more benevolent influence.

As if there were different breeds of them. As if the malignant malevolence of one "breed" could be overridden by the work of another who would have done the same thing to the Ministry that Voldemort did, if he only had the gift and the power and the same twisted ambitions.

No, what was needed was a renaissance of the Light. Instead of allying with Dark wizards and saying it was the best they could do, they should show forth the power of the sun. That was the true hope that would make other people follow them, and admit that they'd been wrong in thinking the struggle against Voldemort hopeless, or worthy of moral corruption.

But Erasmus was realistic. If they'd ignored his word enough to talk to Dark wizards in the first place, he couldn't make a speech or remind them of the existence of the Order of the Firebird and expect that to turn them back to him.

He would have to do something else. Use a tool that the Light had used, but also secure a great part of the Light's power.

He knew how to do that. There were Aurors who had escaped the Ministry's destruction, working in the field. Some of them had more closely agreed with him than others; that was the kind of person Erasmus had settled in the properties seized from Dark wizards. And some of them had artifacts, or could fashion artifacts, that would aid them in proclaiming the Light.

He made a firecall, on the sly. He could not prove it, but he was almost sure that none of his letters were leaving Cupressus's house in their original form. Even the Floo was risky; he might be intercepted, and Cupressus could still control what happened to him as long as he was in his home.

But he was not intercepted. He spoke to an Auror, Duckworth, who understood, and who would come for him as soon as possible. He would bring what was needed with him, too, and then Erasmus had only a few more easy steps to take to insure that his vision became a reality.

Things were moving.

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

"But why isn't he moving?"

"I don't know." Harry kept his voice patient as steel. He didn't have the time to give in and crumple under pressure, and this would be an especially bad time, when he was trying to reassure a representative from Hogsmeade. Hogsmeade was the largest single wizarding population around now, at least if one didn't count Diagon Alley, and they'd already been attacked once. Though some brave souls had gone back to their houses, Harry couldn't blame them for being afraid, or their representative, Candida Coltsfoot, for wanting definite answers as to why Voldemort hadn't attacked them yet.

He couldn't blame her, he told himself again and again. That would have to provide a sufficient guard against strangling her.

"You must know." Candida leaned forward confidingly. She was in her late thirties, Harry thought, or her early forties. Her hair was already streaked with white. He couldn't tell if that came from magic, or a natural coloration—sometimes the intensely inbred pureblood families looked like that—or stress. Her eyes were too big for the space over her nose, wide and staring, blue clouded with bloodshot. "I've heard that you're—connected to him." Her eyes flickered to the scar on his forehead. "You can use that to find out, can't you, why he's not attacking? When he'll attack again?"

Harry held himself still. He couldn't be sure that someone had really found out about his and Voldemort's connection; it could be a rumor, or a lucky guess, or some magical theorist's insistence on symmetry. "I can't venture into a pit as black as Voldemort's mind, madam," he said. That would have to satisfy her.

It didn't, of course. Candida's face darkened again. "You can't possibly want people to die, Mr. Black."

"Of course not," said Harry, trying to get over the strangeness of being addressed by his new last name.

"Of course not," Candida repeated, nodding. "No matter what people say about you, I know that you're different from He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named." She leaned forward again. "And that means that you _have_ to locate the time and date of the next attack. How else can you save lives?"

Harry smiled sadly. Perhaps a dose of truth would content her. It would do something to satisfy the guilt that had dissolved a corner of his mind again. "Even if I'd known about the attack on the Ministry, madam, I don't think I could have saved everyone. Voldemort would have probably managed to drain people and cause some damage. And when I did arrive, when I did know, it was too late. He was simply too powerful. He still has most of that magic. If he commences an attack on Hogsmeade, I'll know, and I'll be sure to stop him as soon as I know. But, at the moment, we simply don't have a spy among his ranks, or any way to _guess_ what's coming next before Midwinter, when we know he plans an attack. He's not that predictable."

"You must know," said Candida. She seemed rather hung up on that.

Harry heard the door open behind him, and knew from the sound of the footfalls that Draco had entered. He frowned slightly, but only in his mind. He knew Draco wouldn't have interrupted his meeting with Hogsmeade's representative unless something was badly wrong.

"I can't predict it," he said simply. "We can draw up maps and likely strategies, but Voldemort is insane. We can warn people and evacuate them, but inevitably someone might live in a wizarding village we miss out on warning in time, or might decide to stay and then get attacked. Our warning system of Aurors and trained defenders is very good, but it can't be perfect. "

"It's your responsibility to protect us." Candida's face had turned red by now.

Harry could hear a growl from Draco. He winced. Draco was always in a worse mood when he was made to wait.

"I'm sorry, madam," he said. "I'll give you the reassurance, the protection, the leadership, I can, but I can't guarantee that no one will be hurt."

"Or that twelve hundred people won't die either, is that right?" Candida demanded. Twelve hundred people was the _Daily Prophet's _estimate for how many wizards had been in the Ministry when it collapsed. "I don't understand. How can you claim to be doing _any_ good when your best guesses are this weak and unrealistic?"

"We'll still try—"

"That's not good enough." Candida closed her eyes and turned away from him, shaking her head as if someone had tried to put a bridle on her. "We _have _to have more than that. Sing all you want, Black, but in the end, what we want is safety, and hope, and we can't have that when you suffer disasters like this and permit disasters like them to happen."

Harry opened his mouth, and then closed it, swallowing. What good would yelling at her do? It might ease his anger for a moment, but it would make him guilty later. Besides, it would drive her further into her shell and convince her she was right, and he needed the people of Hogsmeade to at least listen to him, as he needed the people of every wizarding village to listen if he was going to protect him. Perhaps he should let Cupressus speak to her. He might be able to point the contradiction in her logic—she wanted protection from disasters like the one at the Ministry, but she was also convinced that Harry was the reason the disaster had happened—better than Harry could.

"If you believe that, madam, we have nothing more to say to each other for right now," he murmured. "I'll have Cupressus Apollonis speak to you."

"Who's he?" Candida cocked her head to the side. "I don't recognize his name from the _Prophet._"

_There were only four articles about him, _Harry thought sarcastically. _Perhaps there should have been five?_

But then he subdued that impulse, too. He knew Candida had lost a sister in the Ministry's collapse. Under the circumstances, it was understandable that she would pay attention to the news of that first and other things later, if at all.

"He's the leader of the Irish part of the Light alliance, madam," he said. "He escaped the collapse of the Ministry, and rescued Minister Juniper." Around Candida, it didn't seem wise to call Juniper the Acting Minister. "He has a very clear view of these things."

Candida looked pleased. "I would rather speak with him, then." She gave a decisive nod, and Harry heard Draco growl again. He winced a second time.

"I'll contact him and let him know, madam."

Candida swept grandly out of the room, pausing to eyeball Draco, as if she didn't know what _he_ was doing here. Harry waited until she was gone, because he didn't know if he could have controlled his face, looking at her, and then turned around and faced Draco with a small nod.

"What collapsed, broke, or burned?" he asked.

"I actually had good news." Draco moved forward and wrapped his arms around Harry. Harry stroked his back. "I've made contact with some of the Aurors who were out of the Ministry and working when it fell. There are a few who saw no choice but to serve Juniper if they didn't want to be sacked, but now that he's not in power, they'd rather join your side."

"That is wonderful, Draco," said Harry, and let most of his bad mood drain away. "How many want to come to us?"

"Ten right now," said Draco. "Leave it alone for a few days, and that might become fifteen or twenty. Yes, it's not very many people, but their symbolic impact is more important than their numbers." He stood still a few moments more, while Harry continued to stroke his spine. He was trembling with indignation over something else, but Harry didn't know what it was.

Then he burst out, "How can you let them _treat_ you like that, Harry?"

Harry shrugged. "I don't _like_ it," he said wryly. "But it's a choice between keeping channels of communication open and losing people to my own pride, Draco. Given that kind of decision, I know where I stand."

"But you don't have to," Draco muttered rebelliously into his shoulder. "No one should have to accept whatever someone else tells him, without protest or complaint, just because he's a leader."

"I have greater power," said Harry. "With that might come giving up a few ordinary things that ordinary people get to do, like protesting unfair treatment." He shifted from side to side, restlessly. This discussion was making him dwell on the conversation with Candida, which he didn't want to do. He wanted to sit in a corner for a few minutes and think of darkness and ending. It was healthier than filling his mind with continued poison.

"And it makes them lose respect for you," Draco pointed out, quick as a striking serpent. "That won't win them to your side either, Harry, if you're so weak that they think they can say whatever they like to you."

Harry hissed between his teeth, unhappy. He wanted to change into a lynx and run through the Forbidden Forest. He wanted to bury himself in thoughts of suicide and hoped they cooled the fire building behind his forehead. Most of all, he wanted to shout at Draco, and he didn't _want_ to want that.

"I don't see that there's much I can do," he said casually. "Yes, yelling at them might prompt respect, but it might just as easily make them not listen to me, and I need them to listen—"

"Why?" Draco threw up his hands, then lowered them and glared at him. "If someone comes making unreasonable demands of you, like Coltsfoot does, you can ignore them. You don't need to waste your time listening to them and coddling them, not when actually reasonable people exist and want to talk to you."

"She represents people who are innocent even if she isn't," Harry snapped, showing a bit of the fire in the cracks between the stones. He watched the shutters on the classroom windows bang in the wake of his magic, and took a deep breath, which hissed out again. "Cut her off, and I'm cutting off access, and warnings, and protection, to them."

"Just tell her that you want a new representative, then," said Draco, unflinching as steel. "Tell her you won't talk with her anymore, but the people of Hogsmeade are more than welcome to send a new representative who doesn't want the impossible."

"Would that work?" Harry asked. He assumed the people Candida spoke for had chosen her for a reason.

"It's as likely to as anything else, isn't it?" Draco took another step closer to him. "You're worrying yourself apart doing things like this, Harry. Either demand a replacement for the people like Coltsfoot, or delegate the task of dealing with people like her to others." His teeth gleamed when he smiled. "Me, for example."

"They'd demand—"

"You've let them get away with too much. Yes, they might demand, but that doesn't mean you have to give in." Draco leaned forward and scanned his face closely, as if he were seeing every drop of Harry's weariness and were determined to drink them down and away. "At least try the experiment. I hate to see your strength spent on worrisome little things like this. We don't want you so tired from slapping at mosquitoes that you can't face the dragon."

Harry closed his eyes. That was a fact, wasn't it? He wanted to make plans for Midwinter, but he had no time when his life was filled with half a hundred daily crises that must be dealt with _now_. And until this moment, there had seemed no solution, because people like Candida insisted on speaking with Harry directly.

_Time, perhaps, to see how well they actually deal with people like Draco. Midwinter is worse. If I have to prioritize, then I have to do what I can to make sure I come out of that alive._

"All right," he said, opening his eyes. "You're right, Draco. The next time Candida comes to Hogwarts, you can talk to her."

"Of course I'm right." Draco was giving him a smile that wouldn't have looked out of place on a crocodile. "And thank you."

Harry eyed him as he walked towards the door of the classroom. "Just don't be too hard on her."

"I'll be gentle as a kitten," said Draco, and his smile was even more vulpine, reminding Harry of the fact that his Animagus form was a fox. Harry shook his head and ducked into the hallway.

Perhaps he wouldn't have to delegate, in a perfect world, but this wasn't a perfect world, and his strength was being sapped. He had to do what he could to inspire hope in Britain, but endless hours of argument with petty village officials wasn't the best way to do that.

At least, so he told himself, trying to attach Draco's voice to his conscience.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Draco stretched as soon as Harry was out of sight, and let his smug smile burst forth. He was pleased with himself. He had wondered if he could convince Harry to delegate even by pointing out how useless Coltsfoot's requests were, but it seemed Harry had finally reached his limit. That meant that Draco could speak to the Hogsmeade representative the next time she came to Hogwarts, and he had a few—choice—words for her.

His plan of contacting the Aurors had gone even better than he imagined. He had no proof that those Aurors whom he had slowly been working his way among, the ones who had seen him and Harry defeat Dumbledore, were still alive, but he'd taken a chance and set an owl to the property of a minor Dark family whose house he knew had been seized by the Ministry.

A reply had come at once. Draco still thought they were replying more to the promise of power inherent in Harry's name than to him, but that hardly bothered him. He could work in Harry's shadow and use his influence to orchestrate his own plans. Whatever worked.

The Auror who'd contacted him, Lightsborn, had warned Draco that the Acting Minister had spoken to them, too. Apparently he was concocting yet another plot against Harry, and at least a few of their fellows were going along with it.

Draco had pressed for more details, only to have Lightsborn admit she didn't know them. She would pass them on as they manifested, though.

And, in the meantime, Draco got to have some fun from both ends of the spectrum, helping Harry both far away and here in Hogwarts.

He didn't see how there could be anything wrong with that.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry leaned against the side of the Astronomy Tower and stared upwards.

Above him were stars, and now and then the swooping flight of a Gloryflower winged horse. They took turns patrolling the safehouses and patrolling Hogwarts, by Laura's agreement with Harry. Harry hardly minded. If he was the target of a Midwinter attack, the battle would probably begin at the school, though Harry didn't intend to let it end here. He would move Voldemort away as soon as he could, but that meant Laura and her followers could defend and shelter the students in the meantime.

He closed his eyes, for the moment, and dreamed.

Everything had ended, for him. The darkness had crept in around the corners of his mind and managed to flush most of the concerns of the daylight world away. He knew, somewhere, that other people still existed and still fought Voldemort, and he was grateful for their existence. But it wasn't his struggle anymore.

Guilt had been put aside. Notions of atonement were put aside. Merlin, he could sleep. He had done all he could, and then died, and that was the biggest offering he could make to the war.

Here there were no people clamoring for opinions they didn't like when Harry gave them, or unanswerable questions about whether he had done the right thing by the Ministry victims, Lucius, the Squibs' Association, Draco, Connor, Snape, Regulus, Medusa and Eos, his sworn companions. He wasn't anything more than a speck drifting in darkness. Sometimes he wasn't even that, but the times when Harry could achieve the complete oblivion he believed—he hoped—awaited him in death were rare.

He wanted it to end.

He let the feeling soak through him, enough to freeze and calm the anguish woken by Candida's accusations, and then stood and shook his head. Enough relaxation. He had to decide on a plan for the Midwinter attack.

He slipped quietly to the side of the Astronomy Tower and stood listening. No one was calling his name. Good. It seemed the truth he'd told everyone—that he wanted to be alone while he trained, that no one could be with him and survive such extremities of magic as he was going to practice—had held.

Harry stretched, then closed his eyes and tried to recall the sensation when he'd first fallen into his lynx form, months ago. Yes, it had taken the burst of his magic coming into full maturity to force him there then, but he had to be able to assume the form at will, or what good was it?

He strove for the imagination of four paws, fur settled on him like a jumper, a tail projecting from his spine. The sensation of lowness to the ground was, oddly, what he remembered best, even though he had been a fairly tall lynx.

The image appeared in his head, floating just out of reach. Harry gritted his teeth and forced himself towards it. He _was_ a lynx, that was what he wanted to be at the moment, he could get there, he only had to walk a few more steps on the road separating him from the image and—

And he was there, opening his eyes and blinking to find that the night looked almost gray, and his nose was alive to so many intriguing and confusing smells that he doubted he could sort them out.

He leaped lightly down from the wall of the Astronomy Tower and padded through the school.

It was different, walking like this. He could smell despair and weariness and frustration and the occasional spot or two of happiness, though for the most part Hogwarts wallowed in a cloud of sadness and forced bravery. Nearly everyone had known someone at the Ministry. Nearly everyone was cut by that loss, affected by it. That it could have been worse was not a comfort. It could not have been _much_ worse.

Harry walked softly, not only because of the pads on his paws but because of all that sadness. He traveled through the miasma to the entrance doors, cut small holes in the thick wards, and then patched them behind him. He picked up speed as he trotted across the edge of the grounds and towards the Forest.

With every movement, he became more used to running as a lynx, the moments when his belly fur almost brushed the ground, the silent enormous gifts of his paws, the whiskers that projected to either side of his face and twitched with a will of their own. The cold in the air made his blood rush faster and inspired a hunger in his belly that Harry knew could be quenched by meat. It wasn't creatures he was hunting tonight, though, but a suitable place.

He could feel the call of it almost as soon as he entered the Forest. He hesitated on a small rise, nose up, head cocked back to study the waning crescent of the moon, and then he turned and plunged towards it.

Brush crackled under him as Harry pressed forward, and then he was standing at the edge of the clearing into which he had once seen Nagini slither, dragging a helpless Connor behind her. It was the clearing where he and Connor had faced Voldemort at the end of first year, in Quirrell's body.

Harry spent a few moments pacing the edge, because this seemed as if it would be a place of power for Voldemort, not him. Then he caught an edge of a sweet odor on the air, and flicked his ears. Yes. That must be it. Connor's body had flared with white light when Quirrell had tried to touch him. Snape had always insisted that that showed the power of Harry's love for him, while Harry had preferred to believe, at first, that Connor had saved himself through his own purity.

_Love it is._

Harry spent a few moments more sniffing the ground for the hint of any old traps that Voldemort might have left, then closed his eyes and sat down, wrapping his tail around his paws. He could use magic in this form, as he knew from using it in his visions against Voldemort, and so he began to wrap his magic around him, weaving it into the bushes and trees around the edges of the clearing.

The trees were oaks, old and strong-rooted, but also mostly asleep now, as it was the beginning of winter. Harry tied the magic to their trunks instead of their branches, therefore, so that he wouldn't have to depend on a part of them that would be less awake than the rest. Shoving small balls of magic under roots and into bark and then running lines between them made for exacting, exhausting work, but Harry didn't intend to give up. The only possible way to combat Voldemort, who had considerably more magic than he did, was to prepare the ground carefully beforehand.

_And the wild Dark? _

Harry had to admit that he still didn't know how to handle the wild Dark. He could use the phoenix song to hold it fascinated for a short time, perhaps, but come Midwinter, the manticore had already told him that it intended to take his soul. No amount of enticing and teasing would hold it at bay then. It would come for him and rip his soul out of his body.

And, as he had made clear for himself from the beginning of his suicide-fantasies, to keep his mind from wandering too far, he couldn't die yet.

Harry's whiskers twitched, and his ears flattened, as he went on laying the nets around the edges of the clearing. He didn't know what to do about that. Voldemort he could lure, and the magic in the nets would provide distractions and momentary hindrances, which was the best that Harry count on. Sting Voldemort in many small places all at once, as McGonagall had done when she changed his foot into a rat, and Harry would have a much better chance to use his own _absorbere_ gift and drain the violently taken magic from him.

But the wild Dark had no such vulnerability, and it had shown no inclination to turn on Voldemort and rip his power away from him so far, which Harry wistfully imagined as the best thing that could occur.

He wove another net, and then another, and then paused as a white shape parted the bushes at the edge of the clearing and came towards him. He would have struck, but his nose had already identified the strong scents of horse and human sweat. It was a centaur—Moon, Harry saw as he came closer.

Moon slid to one knee in front of him. Harry had the time to reflect that they would make an odd sight for anyone happening along to see them, the white centaur bowing to a lynx.

"Hail, _vates_," Moon said solemnly. "We bring you news of Polaris's shining, and of the weight of your presence in the world."

Harry could have changed back to human, but he found he didn't want to. It was easier to keep spinning the nets of magic if he didn't have to expend energy in transformation, anyway. He cocked his head and ruffled his whiskers to show that he was listening.

"More webs are melting." Moon might have spoken that with exaltation in his voice, were he human, but Harry had long felt that centaurs didn't _do_ exaltation. "Webs on magical creatures bred by Dark Lords and Ladies. The webs on magical serpents living in the deserts and jungles of Africa and South America. Webs on hippocampi, who have long been hidden from the sight of Muggles; they sport and play in the mid-oceans once more. Even those of our cousins who have found a home between the mighty trees and the sea speak of the redwoods stirring."

Harry hissed. That was all he needed to worry about, what havoc his mere presence in the world was causing.

Moon reached out a hand and touched his ears. It didn't feel like the kind of condescending gesture a human would make to a cat, Harry thought, but a gesture of comfort, solidity, reassurance between comrades. He slowed his lashing tail and waited for what Moon would say next.

"Polaris shines," the centaur told him. "The path of clarity is open, and we would be fools to ignore the message. For long centuries, it has been a guide for humanity, but also for the magical creatures; our ancestors followed it when they began their first migrations. The star speaks to you, _vates_, among all the others it addresses.

"It says this: though darkness is deep, one may pin his heart to a star and navigate by it. The truths of the world are still truths, whatever he endures. Thus the seasons come and go, and Polaris shines in the north, and magical creatures are freed from their undeserved webs at last." Moon slammed a hoof into the earth. "Do not forget what you are, _vates_, the larger path that waits for you as a burden and a gift."

And then he turned and charged into the darkness, again, which closed behind him like the swaying branches of trees. Harry gazed after him in wonder.

_That's what I did forget when I was thinking only of the war and the cool, soothing darkness of death. That there are rewards, gifts, out there, too, that it isn't only about doing things and listening to complaints. Some people are grateful for what I've done, even if those people aren't human, and I can do more good that gives me pleasure as well as good that's solely for others._

Harry turned back to the nets of magic. Suddenly, his lack of a plan to deal with the wild Dark as yet seemed less like a failure and more like an opportunity to finish planning. He still had a few weeks to Midwinter.

_I am the _vates. _I am not just a source of trouble and pain, even to myself, but a source of good things, too. I can remember that, just as I can remember to delegate. It does no one any good if I tip too far in the direction of guilt. Only Voldemort would truly want to see me fall that way._

SSSSSSSSSSS

"I have what you asked for, Minister."

Duckworth's voice was guarded, thanks of course to the fact that they spoke through a hostile Floo, but Erasmus knew what he meant. He could feel his shoulders relaxing, and he nodded.

"So you've sent the message to Harry?"

"It was easy, Minister." Duckworth shrugged a little. "His Malfoy lover contacted us. We did tell him that you'd like a meeting, and while he might be wary of that, what leader worth his salt could resist the opportunity to patch up old wounds? And that is what this shall be."

Erasmus nodded. Let Cupressus listen all he liked, or Harry's Malfoy lover. They would hear only, and exactly, what Erasmus had given his loyal Aurors permission to say: that he wanted to meet with Harry and discuss their differences, and cement the alliance in the name of the Light. That there would be an additional presence at the meeting, one intended to secure Harry's strength for the Light, went unsaid. They would all think that Erasmus's request of Duckworth had only meant the message that had been passed along.

It might take a few days. Erasmus could wait. Let Harry just join him, and they would have enough power to sweep Voldemort away.

And to set other things right, too, things that should never have been allowed to happen.

_Things like revealing the magical world to Muggles._


	63. Helping Hands

**Chapter Fifty: Helping Hands**

Connor closed his eyes. If other people could achieve their Animagus forms in five months or less of training, he should be able to do it, too.

Well, it might have been slightly more than five months, for Draco. But it had been _considerably_ more than five months for him.

He could see the boar that he would be clearly now, even the odd posture that it stood in: with one trotter picked up and curled near its chest, its whiskers bristling, its tusks extending to either side of its face. Peter had eased Connor past his dismay with the ugliness of the creature by pointing out how powerful it was. There was a reason that boars had killed so many heroes and hunters in the old legends. The sheer strength of their charges could carry them _up_ a spear aimed at them and lead them to stab a man trying to kill them before the man could wrench back and free.

A length of space still separated him from the boar, though, and the length seemed unconquerable. He pushed and strained, and managed to get a few feet—or maybe inches—nearer, before Peter spoke softly to call him out of his Animagus trance and back into the real world.

"I don't understand," Connor muttered, as he took a long sip of the glass of water Peter had waiting for him. "Harry did it without even _trying_ when his magic came to full maturity. Why is it taking me so long?" He knew he was probably whinging, but Peter was one of a very few people who wouldn't scold him for that. And, indeed, Peter just smiled and looked thoughtful in reply, instead of snapping.

"Your talents lie in other areas, Connor," he said. "After all, do you think Draco would have as easy a time with the Light spells that you can perform?"

"He's Declared Dark, though." Connor threw himself back on his favorite chair in Peter's office to sulk. It was soft behind him, the Cushioning Charm making the fabric even more deliciously comfortable to sit in. "He wouldn't want to perform Light spells even if he could do them."

"But even without his Declaration, he couldn't do them with the same level of power and accuracy that you can," said Peter calmly. "That's my point, Connor. Not everything depends on Declaration. There's the pressure of innate talent, as well. Most wizards think that they choose the Declaration they want to make of their own free will, but that's not always true. What spells they like to do and want to do and _can_ do will prejudice them in a certain direction. Even the Grand Unified Theory makes that point." Peter picked up his own glass of water and used it, Connor thought, to conceal a smile. "Which rather dismayed some Light wizards and Dark wizards both, since they preferred to think that there was no way they would wind up on the opposite side, or that there was the chance their children would."

"Somehow Light spells feels like a minor talent next to Dark spells _and_ an Animagus form," Connor said.

"You can also fly much better than he can," Peter pointed out. "And you're braver. No one else could have brought Harry back that night he flew off the Astronomy Tower but you."

"But Harry's good at flying, too," said Connor. "_And_ Light magic. _And_ the Animagus form." He stopped, shaking his head. "And—so many other things, really. I wish I had a talent that was just mine alone."

Peter set his glass of water aside and leaned forward. "Shall I tell you what I think, Connor? I can't promise that it's very comforting, but I think you might need to hear it."

Connor blinked and stared into Peter's eyes. They were earnest, and didn't waver. Connor felt a small gnawing hole open in the middle of his stomach. When Peter looked like that, he was about to become _serious_.

But it had to be done. He nodded determinedly. "Tell me."

"I think you were raised to believe you _must_ be unique," Peter said softly. "If one other person in the world shared what you had, what you did, it diminished the value of what you had or did. But that's ridiculous, of course. Why should someone sharing it diminish it? Your father was a good Auror, but so were plenty of other people. And Lily believed in sacrifice, but so did other people.

"It was the Boy-Who-Lived belief, of course. That _was_ unique, and I think they invested too much of you in it. The uniqueness came to be the compelling thing about that, the separation from other people, rather than the connections you could form with them. One other person like you couldn't be a friend, but had to be a rival, and that's why you resisted so strenuously any implication that you had anything in common with, say, a Slytherin."

Connor looked down and scowled at his hands. He didn't like to be told what he thought. Harry was right; it was very annoying.

"I got over that," he muttered. "I announced to everyone at the trial that Harry was the _real_ Boy-Who-Lived, didn't I?"

"You did." Peter nodded. "And it was a very adult moment. And, I think, most of the time, you don't let this confusion overtake you. But you don't need to be unique to be special, Connor. A magical talent doesn't diminish just because one other person in the world can do what you did." He gave a small smile. "I think Harry would welcome other Parselmouths, if the person who shared the gift with him wasn't his mortal enemy."

Connor bit his lip and drummed his foot on the floor for a moment. Then he said, "And you don't think less of me, because I can't assume the Animagus form right now?"

Peter had him in a hug so fast that Connor never saw him move. He blinked and hugged him cautiously back. His parents had hugged him like that, of course, but since Connor had learned how much of his childhood had been a lie, it was impossible to look back on those memories with the same fondness as before.

"Of course not," Peter whispered. "You've still managed to come much further than we did after two years of training. And yes, it's true that we didn't have a proper teacher, because we didn't dare tell anyone what we were doing, but some of it was our own fault. I took much longer to accept that my form was a rat than you took to accept your form, for example. Never think that you're doing poorly, compared to us."

Connor felt a warm little glow. Harry himself might be more at home with Slytherins and consider Snape his father, but Connor still liked receiving words of praise from Gryffindors.

"Thanks," he whispered, and then sat back, took another gulp from his glass of water, and straightened. "I'm ready to try again."

SSSSSSSSSSSS

"He should not go," Snape pointed out. He knew his tone was logical, calm, full of maturity and poise. There was no reason for Regulus to look at him tolerantly, the way he would look at a child who insisted on staying up past his bedtime.

"And why not?" Regulus settled back against the chair in which he sat with a groan that was almost sinful. Snape controlled the impulse to frown at him. At least they weren't in Hogwarts, where a student passing through the halls could have heard the sound, but in Silver-Mirror. That was still no reason for Regulus to be decadent. "The papers will pounce on him if he doesn't. Skeeter can only do so much, you know. Already some of them are saying that Harry's too overconfident of his own power, not to have visited the Acting Minister before this." Regulus took another sip from the glass of wine he held and groaned again.

Snape averted his eyes, and frowned into the fire. "Draco thinks it a trap. So do I. There are Aurors in contact with Juniper as well as those in contact with Harry. It is highly likely that they're planning something."

"They always are." Regulus's voice was warm, lazy, breathy with wine. "Does it matter? Harry will go prepared, thanks to Draco's warnings. If nothing happens, we can show Britain's two leaders working together for the good of the country. If something does happen, it will be Juniper's fault, and that will show that Harry was making a good faith effort while the old bastard wasn't. It's perfect. I trust you and Draco to keep him safe." Regulus sipped. "And I'll go as well, of course, should Harry want me along. In fact, it's probably more proper that I do so, since Harry claimed my name."

Snape turned away with a hiss. He could feel Regulus pausing, and setting the wineglass down, but he refused to look at him. Even when Regulus stood and walked over to stand beside his chair, Snape still refused to look up. And that was mature, too, considering that he knew he would fire a curse at Regulus if he _did_ look up.

"Severus," said Regulus, and he _would_ have to use Snape's first name, wouldn't he? "Is this about jealousy over Harry's last name? Please believe me when I say that I never encouraged him to choose Black as his last name over yours. I'm pleased that he chose it, of course, but I wouldn't have wanted to cause you pain."

"Do not be ridiculous," said Snape. "Of course it is not. It is about Harry going into danger when he meets the Acting Minister."

Regulus's hand fell on his shoulder. Snape thought about shifting out from underneath it, but that would show a gesture that could be interpreted as one of discomfort. He did not wish to show that. He was not uncomfortable. His emotions were tucked in Occlumency pools. He had a place in Harry's life, and he knew what it was. He was not jealous.

"A friendship with you would be much easier if you would _admit_ what you felt and how you felt it, instead of making us guess," Regulus muttered, and then he bent as if he were going to whisper into Snape's ear, though no one else was there.

That kind of closeness, Snape could not tolerate, and he did move further back into the chair. "We should discuss what kind of guard Harry will have when he goes to meet Juniper," he said stiffly. "For, be assured, he will need a guard."

Regulus remained where he was for a long moment. Then he sighed and said, "If you want to be concerned about Harry, Severus, I can't stop you. You're his father."

Snape felt a small stab of satisfaction. At least Regulus acknowledged that.

But why should he care about Regulus acknowledging it? The answer that made the most sense was his being jealous that Harry had chosen Black as a last name, and he was _not_ jealous.

"I do wish," Regulus went on, "that you trusted both me and Harry enough to know that we aren't going to shut you out of his life. If you accepted that, you could do more things like brewing the poison that killed the rest of the Death Eaters, and fewer things like sulking and raging."

Snape had to turn to face him then, because there was no choice. "I _do not_ sulk."

Regulus raised an eyebrow and regarded him.

"I do not," said Snape sturdily. "I am occasionally—uncomfortable—with some choices Harry makes, some people he lets into his life, and especially the risks he takes. But his last name is not one of those things."

"Do you know," Regulus said, apparently talking to the wall, "I think that one should be as honest as possible in a war? Any day may be the last that you see someone else alive, at least for them to recognize you. And yet so many people lie and think they must keep up a cheerful front for the sake of others, when those people would prefer to see the truth, no matter how hurtful."

"Regulus," Snape hissed between his teeth, "shut up."

"And then there are the ones who try to shut down conversations," Regulus went on remorselessly. "Sometimes they forbid discussion of death and reality, as if that would somehow make them vanish. Or they insist that no truth that isn't cheerful can be told, in the name of keeping up morale. Voldemort, of course, was notorious for insisting that his Death Eaters not tell him bad news, even when they had lost a battle badly, and punished those who did so."

Snape stood and whipped towards the fireplace he'd used to Floo to Silver-Mirror. Regulus's arms coming around his middle and hugging him stopped him, utterly.

"You are my friend," Regulus whispered to him. "You are Harry's father. And sometimes you trust those relationships, and sometimes you don't, because you seem to fear that we will disapprove of you, what you do or what you say. I think Harry has inherited far more from you than he did from James, blood link or no."

Then he released his hold, and left Snape standing there, hesitating, deciding whether he should go through the Floo or not.

In the end, he left, and then spent his afternoon brewing Blood-Replenishing Potions. There were some things he was not ready for.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Draco waited alone in the usual abandoned classroom where Candida came to see Harry. She stopped when she saw him, but then appeared to shrug and decide that Draco must have been using the room for some other purpose.

"Where is Black?" she asked, glancing around, as if she thought that Harry would materialize from the walls.

"Busy." Draco didn't try to disguise either the pleasure or the drawl in his voice, and that snapped her gaze back to him immediately. "And busy from now on, unless you change your attitude greatly. I'll speak to you today. Then I'll send you on to Cupressus Apollonis."

Candida actually stared with her mouth open. Draco evaluated her in interest. His mother had taught him that people who did that were a dying breed, because it was so easy for some much smarter wizard to aim the Killing Curse down the open throat.

_My mother._

Draco shook off the thought impatiently. Narcissa wouldn't have wanted grief to cripple him when he was dealing with an idiot like this—and Candida was indeed an idiot, given the stupid words she was readying.

"I insist on speaking to Black," she said, her eyes narrowed and one hand raised as if she would curse him with the power of her fingers alone. Draco didn't think that would work. He yawned and looked at her while her face grew redder and redder. "We live next to the castle. We are the most likely targets of Voldemort's next attack. We have a _right_ to his attention that people living further away don't have, because we are more at risk. I represent children who are only beginning to live in the midst of war, Malfoy, and adult wizards and witches who don't deserve to have their lives cut short because of a lack of information. Tell me where he is, and take me to him now."

"No," said Draco, folding his arms. "He's delegated me to deal with you, because I asked.

"As a matter of fact, there's _no_ proof that you're the most likely targets of Voldemort's next attack. Voldemort wants Harry. He'll go after him first. He may strike Hogsmeade, yes, but he might just as easily attack the school, or another place where one of Harry's friends or allies is living. That's what Harry's been trying to tell you. No one can be absolutely safe from Voldemort because there's no absolute safety from the most dangerous and most insane wizard in the world.

"You've demanded the impossible from him, and then been angry when he doesn't deliver it?" Draco arched an eyebrow. "How do you think that _helps_? It weighs him down with impossible guilt, and you down with stupid demands instead of things that could actually contribute to the war effort."

"We shouldn't _have_ to contribute to the war effort!" Candida yelled at him. "We've _given_ enough, blood and lives, and many of us gave up our homes when the vampire queen attacked! That's _enough_, those sacrifices! What did we ever do to Black that we should have to bear part of his burdens, or to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, that he should target us?"

Draco was tempted to bow his head, put a hand on his brow, and shake his head sadly. But, in the end, dramatic gestures would suffice less to teach Candida the error of her ways than calm, cool words would. He arched an eyebrow and stared at her until she had the chance to turn red from embarrassment instead of passion.

"You lived in the same country," he said. "You preferred to leave the duty of defense up to the powerful wizards around you, instead of participating in it yourselves. You became fat and lazy, and you started to think of war as something that happened elsewhere, to other people. And lately, you've snapped and sniped at Harry and stopped him from thinking about either the Ministry _or_ ways to defend you because you were so busy insisting on perfect safety.

"How in the world is a country supposed to defend itself when only a few people try to help? When the rest are too busy hiding in their houses or wailing about how something isn't their fault to even pick up a wand? You want perfection. You won't get it out of Harry. You won't get it out of anyone."

"We had thirteen years of peace," Candida whispered. "Why couldn't it have stayed that way?"

"I can hardly believe that you're an adult," Draco observed. "Did you think, for one moment, that that peace would last _forever?_ Destroy Voldemort, and another Dark Lord would have risen in his place, eventually, or some other Lord would have decided to come and take over Britain when Dumbledore died." He kept his knowledge of the Pact and its procedures to himself. This woman could barely look out her own windows; she didn't need to know anything about the international confederation of wizards and witches who would, probably, have kept a stranger from establishing himself in Britain. "You can't whimper and whinge and expect that _that_ gets things done. When someone as strong as Voldemort arises, there needs to be opposition to him at all levels, the highest to the lowest, the weakest as well as the most strong. Otherwise, we have a single defender who's destroyed, and then where are we, the rest of us, the innocent who don't 'deserve' a war?"

"But he can face it," Candida whispered, her head bowing as if it were the head of a flower loaded with frost. Draco doubted his words had cowed her that much. More likely, the picture he painted was so bleak as to compel her to start thinking about what it would really mean should Harry fall. "We can't."

"Then _learn_." Draco watched in satisfaction as she flinched, a straight line of pain that seemed to travel from her stomach to her shoes. "Harry's offered dueling classes, a system of warnings so that people can let him know when a village is under attack, evacuation to France."

"We don't want to leave," Candida said, face completely lowered now, but the corners of her brow set in stubborn lines. "We just want—we just want things to be the way they were."

"And instead of helping them return to that state, you're moping and whinging taking Harry's time away from problems that _are _problems, instead of the moans of spoiled children who have never had to fight." Draco examined his fingernails for a moment. "Charming."

Candida took a sudden step forward, hands balled. "It's all right for _you_," she snapped. "You know that you'll be protected no matter what happens, because you're so dear to Black. And you came through the attack at the Ministry all right, didn't you? But my sister was nobody to him. And he was there, and she _still died._ And if the rest of us don't protest, don't make ourselves noticed, then he's likely to let us die, too, just so that he can protect the people important to him. We have to play on his sense of guilt, or we'll be abandoned."

Draco stared at her. Then he recovered his voice. "That statement says more about your own selfishness than anything Harry's done. You might leave anyone you didn't personally care about to die. He won't."

"Then how is it that the people who die when he fights are innocent victims, while the people he loves come through again and again?" Candida asked triumphantly, as if that proved something.

Draco half-closed his eyes and shook his head. "I don't care about your grief the way Harry does," he said. "I _am_, in fact, the way that you accuse him of being—I don't give a damn as long as the people I love survive—but I've gone through a loss that I don't blame on him, and if you've listened to everything he says and can still believe he's really like me, you're blind."

"What he says to the newspapers is propaganda." Candida shrugged. "Just attempts to make sure that most people think he's compassionate, and won't turn against him."

"I see no point in talking to you further," said Draco. He had been tempted to ask why she was begging for Harry's attention if she really thought him so cold-hearted, but he knew the contradictions in her logic didn't matter to her. She wanted things to be the way they had been. Nothing less would satisfy her, and it was a longing that could never be gratified.

Harry would have all sorts of reasons and excuses for her, of course—the loss of her sister, the fact that Candida was of the generation that had grown up under Dumbledore's protection and had never believed she would have to do her own fighting, the proximity of Hogsmeade to Hogwarts. But the fact remained that Draco wasn't Harry, and that Candida had nothing reasonable in her worldview that he could translate into a political bargain.

"Have your people send a new representative, if they really want to be heard," he added, to Candida, and swept towards the door of the room.

"Wait!"

Draco turned, wondering if she had something to say that could salvage the situation. He doubted it. Candida was leaning forward, though, one hand extended.

"My people chose me because I was the only one who wanted to come to the castle and speak," she said. "The rest of them are too terrified to do so. Please. They won't send another person in my place. They'll simply huddle in their houses."

Draco gave a slow, delighted smile. "You should have thought of that before you started to antagonize us," he said simply. "You'll be able to speak to Cupressus Apollonis in a few days."

He turned away and shut the door on her further words, then. He had no use for those who refused to admit their mistakes, whose lives were an endless series of weepings and wailings and complaints and hopes that someone else would take up the slack.

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

"For the last time, I think we have everything." Harry tried to keep the tense snap in his voice down, but it was hard. Snape had made him go over five different ways to react to any treachery on Juniper's part, including an unexpected Portkey, an attack by the Aurors who would be at their meeting, and a sudden use of the phoenix web or other powerful Light binding spell.

Snape shook his head. "And I still do not think we should be attending this meeting at all."

"You've made that _very clear._" Harry bared his teeth. "We're going, sir. You and Draco will be with me, and Regulus, and the sworn companions just out of sight. It would be _stupid_ for Juniper to try anything, especially since he _knows_ that I'm the only one who can defeat Voldemort."

"Juniper _is_ stupid," Draco pointed out, leaning against Harry and patting his other shoulder. "So of course he'll try something. But we have enough power on our side to counter whatever he tries."

Harry opened his mouth, then snapped it shut. That might mean that Draco was going to read the minds of the Aurors present at the meeting. If that was the case, then he didn't want to know it. Life was much easier when he allowed the Slytherins around him to do what they needed to do.

_Life would be much easier if I acted more Slytherin at times, too._

Harry pushed that thought away. He was still devoted to keeping his peacetime morals as intact as possible. Corruption could wait. "Let's go, then," he said determinedly, facing the Forbidden Forest. They had come out to the end of the Hogsmeade road, as usual, to Apparate to the agreed-upon location with Juniper. Harry could see a few people watching them from the edge of the village. Their faces were pale and desperate. He found himself watching them and wondering what they thought of this, whether they hated him or not.

Then he shrugged the notion impatiently away. _What does that matter? It's only idiots like Juniper who want to be universally beloved._

The disorientation of Apparition seized him, and then they were standing on the wide field that had been, as Snape informed him when Juniper suggested it, the scene of a major battle in the First War. Harry wasn't sure what implications to read from that, other than the fact that the Light had won the battle, and Juniper might be seeking to relive the victory through his own actions.

The day was open and windswept, though dark with clouds that looked ready to drop snow. Harry could see Juniper and his guards immediately, ten or fifteen Aurors gathered around him. Cupressus stood not far away from them, arranged halfway between as a supposedly neutral party—both a member of the Order of the Firebird and Harry's ally. He faced Harry and gave a nod of welcome.

Harry could feel his shoulders tense. Cupressus had agreed that he would shake his head if he believed Juniper to be innocent, and nod if he thought there was something wrong.

But then, that only made part of Harry more eager to finish this. He had squeezed the amulet and summoned Rita as soon as he had a good idea of the meeting place. She would be waiting nearby with a photographer and her Quick-Quotes Quill. If something happened, she would record the event immediately and make it clear to the _Prophet _and its readers that Harry was the wronged party.

He came nearer to the Acting Minister, and nodded. "Hello, sir. You said that you wanted to make peace with me?"

Juniper's eyes locked on him. Harry didn't miss the gleam of satisfaction in them. He felt his own gleam of sadness. Juniper really couldn't lie to save his own life, could he?

"I do," said Juniper. "I do not think that our people should be divided when we have such a formidable enemy to fight." He gestured to the Auror who stood beside him, and the man, moving slowly and carefully so that Harry could see every motion before he made it, drew out a scroll tied with blue ribbon from his cloak. "This is a treaty that, once signed, will bind us both to obey the same laws, and to accord each other the same measure of honor and respect. It also makes us allies beyond doubt in the war against You-Know-Who."

Harry didn't need Draco's hand tightening on his shoulder to let him know there was something suspicious about the treaty. For one thing, the ribbon should really have been green, the color of spring and thus of reconciliation, if Juniper was following the oldest Light customs.

"Let me see the scroll," he murmured, and floated it away from the Auror's hand before anyone could object.

Almost at once, he felt a salty, sour tang to the magic around the scroll. He wrinkled his nose and undid the ribbon, shaking it out at a distance from him to read it. It looked legitimate, filled with archaic and legal language, but given the Auror and the ribbon, Cupressus and the taint to the magic, Harry knew there must be something wrong with it. He just couldn't figure out what, yes.

Draco leaned forward as if reading the scroll over his shoulder. Into Harry's ear, he whispered, "It's a version of the silver collar that they used to bind Fudge's Hounds. Transfigured. Put it on you, and the person who holds the gem that Juniper's carrying right now controls your magic and your mind."

Harry tried to breathe through the sheer rush of dizzying _rage_ that descended on him. He wasn't sure what angered him more, actually: the idea that Juniper still did not grasp what was important in the wake of the Ministry's destruction, or the idea that, even now, he would try to bind a _vates._

But they still needed to trigger the trap so that Rita could capture it. Accusations wouldn't look good at all, particularly if they had to admit to relying on Draco's possession gift or Snape's Legilimency to get their evidence.

He raised his eyes to Juniper's, calming his hatred, and said, "It looks in order. May I have a quill, sir?"

Juniper's eyes lit up as he handed the quill over. Harry understood, then. He was probably going to activate the spell the moment he signed, or else there was a provision in the contract that made it seem Harry would accept the collar willingly. Then it would Transfigure back into silver and snap around his neck.

So Harry had to be careful.

He placed the quill against the parchment, and, in a silence tense for him and at least five other people, he began to sign. _Harry_ went on the parchment, which quivered beneath his hands, and then he began _Potter._

He'd just started the curve of the _P_ when the scroll moved.

Harry acted at the same time, opening the gullet of his _absorbere_ gift and draining just enough of the magic from the changing collar that it couldn't snap shut around his throat, while still giving it enough to let it complete the transformation. A moment later, the collar lunged at him, opening and closing like the jaws of a maddened dog, and Juniper lifted a gem above his head with a triumphant yell—

Only to pause when he realized Harry was clutching the straining collar in one hand and watching him with cold eyes, and that the dazzling flashes of a camera were exploding to the left.

Harry was watching. He saw the moment when true despair settled into Juniper's eyes. This was making an impact on him in a way that not even the fall of the Ministry had, at least for the moment. Maybe it had been the last plan he felt capable of coming up with. Harry didn't know.

He _did_ know that this was the end of Juniper's usefulness as a figurehead. If he would betray the person he had to work with to secure the future against Voldemort, he was not useful, in any sense, as a leader.

The other Aurors, apart from the one who had handed Juniper the scroll, suddenly moved, and closed in on the Acting Minister and his assistant. That Auror tried to fight his way free, but they had him disarmed and subdued soon enough.

All the while, the camera clicked and flashed.

And Harry went on staring into Juniper's eyes, watching the knowledge of defeat penetrate the man's brain at last, and feeling Draco's hand on his shoulder, and trying to drown the dull throbs of both satisfaction—it would be easier, now, without Juniper's dead weight around his neck—and disappointment—he could hardly believe that such stupid people existed in the world.


	64. Destruction Laughing

**Chapter Fifty-One: Destruction Laughing**

The wild Dark laughed above the world, and Kanerva Stormgale laughed with it.

She had given herself over to the wild Dark when she first realized the extent of its loathing for the world. She felt the same way herself. She gazed down at houses and coastlines, lakes and hills, from her height, and she thought of winds smashing them and drowning them in the oceans. Most of all, though, she thought of them ceasing to exist, as a fine black oblivion took them all.

She wanted that. The wild Dark would spread a destruction finer than any she could conceive, finer than wine, in every direction. She would cease to exist along with everything else. She would go down in peace.

And that was what the wild Dark promised now, as it had not even back two Midwinters ago, when Kanerva had lent it her strength as it raged above Britain. Let the longest night come, and things _would_ cease to exist. It told her that, and then it laughed, and Kanerva laughed back, because to love it she did not have to trust it.

She vaulted among the clouds, and sang aloud. She felt her winds racing around her in a tightening cocoon, and she put a hand out, running it down and over and through their smooth bonds. They tied her so tightly she could hardly move, and then parted and spun her out again. She knew that the wild Dark was behind that, trying to make her afraid, testing her resolve.

Kanerva would never be afraid of it again, though. Twenty-five years ago, she had stood on a rocky promontory above the ocean and stared down into the black water. It was the moment she had come to full power, and she knew she had the choice of giving herself over to this incredible strength, or casting herself into the ocean and ending her life right then and there.

She had chosen the wild Dark. Anxious as she was to pass away, suicide into the ocean waves would be imperfect for her. She wanted the wild Dark to do it. She wanted oblivion complete and perfect. Nothing of her must survive when the moment of death came, because she wanted it that way.

She had tried and tried to tell Jing-Xi and Harry the truth of that. Jing-Xi only looked at her with wide, sad eyes. Kanerva thought she understood, sometimes, but she had still brought Kanerva along to aid Britain, so perhaps she did not.

And Harry! Kanerva shook her head and whipped around a rising column of air, then descended it towards the earth until it threatened to bear her out of the wild Dark's sphere of influence. The boy still thought of loyalty first. When someone held a different belief from himself, he thought first of persuasion. He did not understand those, like Kanerva and the wild Dark, whose ultimate ambition was the destruction of the world, and of all the possibilities he held so dear.

Kanerva was fond of him. She could admit that without disgracing herself, or turning against her principles. And when Midwinter came, she would fight for him, because Voldemort dared call himself Dark Lord, as if he were the only one, and play with the force she served.

But she would not stand in the way of the wild Dark as it moved to claim Harry's soul. That was a mystery Harry did not understand, could not permit himself to understand as long as he loved someone else: the mystery of perfect destruction.

High above Britain, destruction laughed, and Kanerva laughed with it.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

**_The Daily Prophet_**

_December 4th, 1997_

**_ACTING MINISTER JUNIPER DISGRACED:_**

_**Tries to capture vates with child's trick**_

_By: Rita Skeeter_

Thanks to an anonymous warning, this reporter was present at the meeting of Acting Minister Erasmus Juniper and vates Harry Black this afternoon. The meeting was described as an attempt at reconciliation and establishing ties between wizards who until today were often described as hating each other.

The reconciliation did not work. When the vates began to sign the treaty, it rose, Transfigured, and attacked him.

It turned out that the Acting Minister was using a variation of a silver collar last seen controlling those whom Minister Fudge called the Hounds, who were his loyal hunters of Dark magic. Had Black signed out his full and true name, as per a provision in the treaty, he would have agreed to his own captivity, and the Acting Minister would have assumed control of his magic and mind via a gem linked to the collar. It is Light, if only by the slimmest of margins, claiming as it does to respect the target's free will and own decision to become a captive and a slave.

The Aurors with Acting Minister Juniper, all but the unfortunately-named Jason Duckworth, turned on their former leader when they found out what he had done. Juniper is now under house arrest in an undisclosed location, awaiting evacuation to France.

The vates has said that he does not intend to charge Juniper with a crime. "What he did has been tried before and failed," he said, looking extraordinarily composed as he gave the orders for the Acting Minister's transportation. "One has to feel sorry for him, really."

When asked if the Light still has power in the new coalition government that he is helping to set up, Black raised an eyebrow. "Of course. Cupressus Apollonis, among others, has offered his assistance and been accepted. He is the new leader of the Irish part of the alliance, while Miriam Smith has agreed to lead the British half."

The vates went on to warn those who might wish to flee that they would be better off doing it as soon as possible. He said that matters become more and more dangerous as we move closer to Midwinter.

"It's the night of longest darkness," he said. "I'm sure I don't have to tell you what You-Know-Who might have planned for then."

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Cupressus smoothed the paper flat with one hand, and read the article's opening paragraphs one more time. It was the first time in days that the _Prophet_ had been allowed to enter his house without having the writing in its lead article adjusted to something less inflammatory.

Of course, for those who might have been angry about or doubted the wording, there was always the picture, which Skeeter's photograph had snapped at the exact correct moment. Juniper was lunging forward, his hand raised above his head, his mouth open, and then staggering to a stop when Harry grasped the collar a few inches from his throat and fixed him with a cold eye. The next moment, the Aurors fell on him like a folding flower.

Cupressus was determined to keep an eye on some of those Aurors. Some of them would have been waiting, sure that Harry would win, but ready to follow Juniper if he did not. Let the danger grow too great, and they might abandon their new posts on Harry's side. They could use wizards trained in combat, but not if those wizards were going to run from the enemies they were supposed to defend the helpless against.

He leaned back, clasped his hands behind his head, and studied the far window of his home thoughtfully. There was the emptiness at his side where Ignifer should have been. He was trying to learn to ignore it.

He was learning to ignore many things that might have mattered to him, truly, because the sheer continued existence of the Light in Britain and Ireland mattered more to him than they did. Once, he would have disdained to lend Harry his assistance if he found the man dying at the side of the road. He had seemed dangerous, the embodiment not of Darkness but of the permissiveness that had allowed the Dark to achieve the position of power it had. Cupressus could not deny how strongly Harry had fought against Voldemort. At the same time, though, why would he not demand more from those who followed him? The ones like Cupressus who would refuse him outright were rare. He could have grown into a much stronger force if he would sometimes make demands, instead of accepting the first answers that his people gave him.

And then Minister Scrimgeour had been killed.

That had taken a large part of Cupressus's personal enmity into the grave with him. Death was the harshest punishment he could ask for for the crime of having invaded his house and believing that he had abused his own child. And he had joined Erasmus fully because the man had moved fast, faster than Cupressus could have, to gain the Minister's office, and had seemed, for a few shining days, the best choice to both lead the Ministry and make sure the side of the Light survived.

And then Erasmus had turned out to be useless in war situations, in situations for which he did not have plans already laid, in situations where he did not have a more or less equal opposition to test himself against. Scrimgeour had been far more his equal than Harry or Voldemort were. So Cupressus had questioned his definition of Light, and learned it was far too impractical and too old-fashioned to survive and grow in the modern British Isles.

He'd sworn the oaths of the Order of the Firebird because he could keep them, but the Order would never grow. There were too many people who could not give their lives to it, could not believe in it. And that was well enough for Cupressus. By then, he'd already been detaching his cart from Juniper's star, and begun to hitch it to Harry's. Why not? The issue of his personal grievances against the boy—far more of which were actually lodged in Ignifer and Scrimgeour—was nothing compared to the fact that he _must_ defend the Light or it would be lost.

And the Light would survive now. Cupressus was certain of that. He would do his best to make sure that the Light had its own place in the _vates's_ councils, even after Voldemort went down to death and the world became more or less normal again. They were making progress towards creating a provisional government, using the model that Harry had established of the defensive network between villages. Those willing to help could do anything, from covering escapes to French ships and Apparition points to watching those most vulnerable to Death Eater recruitment. The loss of the Ministry was devastating, but Britain was slowly overcoming it and moving on.

That was primarily what made Cupressus scornful of the letter he had received today, written on thick, creamy parchment and sealed with the symbol of the International Confederation of Warlocks.

They should have looked more carefully at the political situation before they bothered to send this to him. _Really_. Thinking they could play on the ancient rivalry between Britain and Ireland to serve their own ends, instead of checking to see whether the current leaders cared more about that rivalry than the war? Thinking that most people around Harry saw him as an abused child, just because Juniper had?

Cupressus had already made a copy to pass along to Harry, one that would arrive at the school soon. It suited him that it would be borne by the same owl who had carried his test messages asking Harry simple questions, trying to see how he would react. He had acted how Cupressus expected him to, and that had been one of the middle signs that showed Cupressus the right road to follow.

He set down to write a relatively polite letter to the Confederation, listening, meanwhile, to the way that his house's wards shifted and rang in the sunlight. In another corner of the house, Artemis was singing. Cupressus could only hear snatches of the voice, but he knew the song, the ancient Latin words and the breaths and pauses that his wife took to get around them. This was a song she had sung every day at this time for years, a song that many Light witches had once used to anchor the blessings of the sun to their homes.

Such traditions were larger and more precious than merely personal rivalries, and though he disliked doing it, Cupressus could work with people he found distasteful—and some people he had tested and found good, such as Harry—to preserve them.

_A pity the Confederation does not understand that._

SSSSSSSSSSS

Indigena frowned in concentration, and closed her eyes. What her Lord had asked her little garden to produce this time was harder, since it was not living. A narcissus flower, a copy of her cousin Feldspar's body—those she could produce without much trouble. But this would only be incidentally living, a hammer made of hardened, dead material like bone and horn. She would have to grow it, and then make it die, and then harden it enough to crush stone.

She became aware of a presence on the edge of her garden, but she ignored it for the moment. If it were Evan, he would wait. If it was one of the twins, they would realize that her duties for their Lord were more important than interrupting her right away to deliver a message.

The presence lingered, waiting, while Indigena strained, and strained, and finally achieved something that was what her Lord wanted, though Merlin knew it wasn't the most beautiful thing she'd ever made. She couldn't resist adding the rainbow of a mother-of-pearl sheen to it, though. Who cared? Well, she did. Not many people would see it as punched through the rock, and her Lord would only stare with dead eyes if she asked him about it, so Indigena thought she might as well please herself.

When she looked up, she stared. The presence that waited on the edge of her garden was the shimmering silvery shape of Aurora Whitestag's ghost.

Indigena regarded her carefully. Had she come to take her revenge? It was stupid of her to risk her existence like this, if so. Indigena stood in the sanctuary of her garden, among plants she had bred, on earth she had filled with her presence. Aurora could spend her strength here without managing to tear a plant from the soil. Yes, she might frost them, but Indigena had twined more plants within herself that kept their flowers later in the year, and so had a better resistance to that tactic now.

Aurora skimmed nearer and nearer, the trailing edge of her robe brushing just over the crisp snow that lay everywhere on the ridge but Indigena's garden. Indigena watched her come, her hand lightly clenched around the edge of the shining hammer.

"Did you know," said Aurora conversationally, stopping a few feet away from Indigena, "that I died thinking of how I could be useful in stopping you? That doesn't have to mean that I kill you to take my revenge. It could just mean that I _stop_ you." She smiled dreamily, as if she knew something Indigena didn't.

"I realize that," Indigena said quietly. "I understand what might make a person return as a ghost."

"Did you like killing me?" Aurora demanded.

Indigena shook her head. "But it seems my fate to be involved in the deaths of people I have come to respect."

Aurora snorted and folded her arms. She looked younger, as she had since she returned from the dead. Indigena wondered if this was what she had really been like, so driven and so passionate, when she was in her twenties, or if this was an ideal imagining. "Fate? It's not fate. It's your stupid honor debt, the perversion of your word. If you would give that up, many people in the world would be happier." She eyed the hammer in Indigena's hand as if she knew what it was for. She probably did. She could have come near, undetectably, and listened to Indigena and her Lord's plans for Midwinter. Ghosts born as vengeance spirits had powers like that, though much more limited powers to make use of what they heard.

Indigena shrugged. "Honor is important to me in ways that you will never understand."

"That puts you to sleep at night, I'm sure." Aurora brushed her hair out of her eyes. "But do you think that anyone else out there believes it?"

"Becoming a ghost has not made you the fount of all wisdom." Indigena stooped to slip a vine from around the hammer's handle, and murmur thanks to her plant. It rustled in exhaustion, then pulled its leaves in on itself and went to sleep. Indigena doubted she would gain any more from it this year.

"So you don't care what other people think of you?" Aurora floated along the outside of the garden like a rag borne on the wind.

"Very good. Perhaps you can learn wisdom, if you were not made with it." Indigena hefted the hammer thoughtfully. She would have to have a strong vine to carry it, but considering what the Midwinter attack was designed to do, she would have had to use strong vines in any case. She started towards the mouth of the burrow, carrying the hammer. Aurora drifted after her.

She didn't attack when Indigena crossed the border of the garden, to her vague surprise. She paused and studied the ghost, who simply drifted a bit closer and opened her mouth as if to make a joke of eating Indigena's hair.

"What do you want?" Indigena asked softly.

That made Aurora ripple like a reflection in a pool broken by a tossed stone. Indigena decided it probably came from laughter she couldn't hear. "You know what I want," said Aurora, when she returned to herself. "You know the reason for what I was thinking when I died."

Indigena nodded. "I was simply thinking that the war is likely to kill me before you get a chance."

"So many more things can be done than death," said Aurora, her eyes half-lidding. "Just as so many other things can be done _with_ death." And with that, she turned to a frosty smear on the air, and was gone.

Indigena shrugged and went into the burrow, dragging the hammer along with her. She could feel the earth's dull protest as the head carved a groove into it, but its voice was faint and weak now, after so many days of occupation by Voldemort and his magic. At least Indigena's forays into the open air sustained her tolerance for coming back down into this stifling warmth and power.

Her Lord looked up from the throne on which he sat. Small scarlet windows occupied the places where his ruined eyes had once rested. Indigena couldn't tell if they were a gift from the wild Dark, or a consequence of his own increasing power. She didn't know exactly how they worked, what he saw. She didn't want to know. She kept her eyes averted from her Lord most of the time, in any case, just because she didn't want his Legilimency slipping under the surface of her thoughts and discovering how disloyal she actually was. Plotting to destroy two of the three servants left to him would count as disloyal, Indigena guessed.

"This is our weapon, my Lord," she said, and hefted the hammer. The handle was packed with vines, as much like a stem as it could be. That was her concession to the living forces that had produced it, almost the only one.

Her Lord, of course, floated it lightly over to him and studied it. Indigena stood tamely in front of him, meanwhile, her eyes on the floor, awaiting a random order to kneel. Her Lord's brain had seemed more and more scattered and scrambled ever since they returned from the attack on the Ministry.

"You have done well, Indigena," said her Lord at last. "What would you like as a reward?"

She nearly glanced up in her startlement. He had never said anything about that before. "My Lord," she said, confused, "you know the reason I serve. Fulfilling my honor debt and having my garden is enough for me. I did not come to you to achieve overarching ambitions or even protect the existence of blood magic and unwilling sacrifice in the wizarding world, as Sylvan and Oaken did. I am content with things as they are."

Silence. Indigena stood still, wondering if this was the last moment of her existence. It would be odd, if so. She had never imagined her Lord might kill her for being unable to answer a question.

Then he said, his voice soft as the earth once had been before first winter and then magic pounded it with storms, "You shall have of me whatever you desire, Indigena. You are the only one who has been loyal, the only servant in all the years I have lived who would have found me, healed me, and stood by me as I began my return to leadership of the wizarding world."

Indigena remembered how he had looked when she found him, and the way that he had sometimes thrashed and screamed during the long months when they could do nothing but study plans in books and send dreams to a few former Death Eaters. It was strange, but then, when he most needed her, when her abandonment would have meant his destruction, she had never once considered abandoning him. The honor debt had been strong enough then, she believed, to compel her to stay with him forever.

_Strange how things have changed. Strange that if I saw him in that state again, I would stand beside him still._

When her Lord reached out and clasped her hand, Indigena did not resist. She could ask herself all the questions she liked, but some questions did not have an answer.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Poppy caught her eye across the table and scowled. Minerva scowled back. Poppy didn't think she should be on her feet and addressing the school yet, but it would be best if this message came from her and not from Severus. Besides, an invalid Headmistress, constantly lingering between life and death's door according to the rumors, would hardly inspire the confidence that, as Poppy had pointed out, people needed to have in Hogwarts.

Minerva cleared her throat, feeling the expectant eyes on her from all five tables—for her own professors stared, too, wanting some measure of reassurance or denial—and began.

"We approach the darkest night of the year," she said quietly, "and the time of the Dark's greatest power. We must make a decision on your safety. I know that some of your parents have already agreed that you must not return for the winter term." Mulish expressions sprouted on their faces at that. Minerva wondered how many would sneak away from their parents after Christmas holidays and insure that they returned for the winter. She was sure many of the sixth-years, particularly those who had seventeenth birthdays in the next few months, already planned to. "But others are worried that their own homes are far too easy targets for Voldemort's wrath, and trust to the protection of the wards, or dislike the quality of education in whatever country they have fled to. I will require every student to sign his or her name to one of four lists when this meal is over: those who do not intend to return for the next term, those who will go home for the Christmas holidays but return when they are done, those who intend to remain in Hogwarts over Midwinter, and those who are legally adults and may decide for themselves."

She sat down, and the meal appeared before them. Minerva ate, noticing that Poppy appeared to be keeping track of both the amount of vegetables and the amount of meat she finished. After Minerva crunched up a carrot while staring into her eyes, the matron finally flushed and looked away.

Minerva turned back to her students, a shudder of protectiveness passing through her. She was not sure what the best decision was, to tell the truth. Many students going away would leave a smaller number for Voldemort to attack—but, on the other hand, they would be more vulnerable in more weakly-warded homes, and many of them were reluctant to leave friends and relatives in danger. The Muggleborn students didn't even have the advantage of going into hiding behind wards, unless they remained at Hogwarts or could find a sympathetic wizarding family to take them in. And that was to say nothing of the numerous people in Hogwarts who were not students, such as the adult wizards and witches Harry had training or coming to him for advice. There was no other base so central and so important to their war effort, now that the Ministry had been destroyed. Try to create one between now and Midwinter, and they only created a new target for Voldemort to attack, one that could not and would not carry the same heavy protections as Hogwarts in the limited amount of time they had left.

Besides, Harry assured her that the wild Dark was interested in him alone, in his soul, and that Voldemort would almost certainly be aiming to take him down. No, he could not say that Voldemort wouldn't attack Hogsmeade or Hogwarts on the way, but he intended to clash with the older wizard as soon as possible and move the battle to a prepared clearing in the Forest. Kanerva and Jing-Xi had both given their word to fight with him, or defend Hogwarts if necessary.

In the end, she had to leave the choice up to individual students and their families. Some would feel safer in France, or Iceland, or other countries even beyond that, if they had a way to get there and a way to live once they arrived. Others would feel cowardly for running away and leaving a war behind them, or _were_ afraid enough to want Hogwarts's wards and thick stone walls between them and Voldemort. Without a Ministry to order her to close the school, Minerva had decided to keep it open, and continue to offer sanctuary.

What most frustrated her was that she would be unable to join in the battle on Midwinter, should one come. Why could the strength of her heart not match the strength of her will?

A few hours after dinner, she checked the lists hung outside the Great Hall. By far the longest ones either said students would be remaining in the safety of Hogwarts or intended to return after the Christmas holidays. Some students whom she knew were not legally adults had signed their names to the adult list.

Minerva did not intend to report them.

_To all of us, good luck, and a good Dark night._

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry studied the net he'd woven under the earth, and nodded. He'd buried it so deeply that Voldemort would have to be _looking_ to notice it. It would trap Voldemort if Harry could wound him badly enough, but, more than that, it also would give Harry bursts of strength. He could fight on past wounds that would cripple him, and if Voldemort drained some of his magic, it would not be the beginning of the end.

"What do you think?" he asked, looking up at Jing-Xi. "Do you like my clearing?"

Jing-Xi gave him a faint smile, but her eyes were serious as she stared around the expanse of earth already laden with snow, the trees wrapped in more magic than leaves now, the hard glitter of it all under the nearly full moon. "You are as ready as you can be at this point in time, Harry," she whispered. "But we are facing the wild Dark. There is no reason to be overconfident."

"That, I know," said Harry wryly. "But I don't think I am."

He really didn't think he was, as he focused on the view of the clearing. Traps shone everywhere, but they were traps visible only to someone who practiced at least a bit of Light magic; Kanerva had been consulted, and had admitted she couldn't see them. By the time Voldemort began to _feel_ them, it would be too late. Harry would have latched on and started to drain his magic.

And he had—well. He could not call it anything so noble and coherent as a _plan_ to face the wild Dark. It could suffer just as any plan did when battle erupted, and, as Jing-Xi cautioned him to remember, this was the wild Dark, creature of madness. It might decide to do otherwise because otherwise _pleased_ it. It wasn't the smartest move to think that he could predict an inhuman, mad force.

But Harry had to act from a human position, and that human position saw patterns and sense in the wild Dark he thought he could use. So, every night for the past two weeks, he had sung from the top of the Astronomy Tower, and either seen or felt the wild Dark's manticore form cooing at him. It liked the phoenix song, fascinated by the Light of it as a child would be by a glittering bauble.

So his plan began from there.

He took a deep breath and shook his head. There were worries, other things that could go wrong, but he would _have_ to learn to ignore the nagging possibilities until they manifested as realities. That was the way it was. Draco was right; trying to deal with every tiny problem in the book would make him insane.

A gust of wind swept by overhead, and when he looked up, he could just make out Kanerva, a pale shape as she flew against the belly of the black sky. He wondered what she was laughing about.


	65. Interlude: Into the Long Dream

The poems quoted in this chapter are all by Algernon Charles Swinburne; they are, in order, "Anactoria," "Satia te Sanguine," "Dolores," "Félise," "Ilicet," and "Hertha."

**Interlude: Into the Long Dream**

_November 22nd, 1997_

_Dear my lady Henrietta:_

I still seek your help when Midwinter comes. Will you agree to this? The call that you sent me has not gone unfelt, and shall not go unanswered. But whether I come to the school in the midst of your grief and guilt, or for this larger purpose, to end the life of one who is a forest and one who is a tree, to engage in a dance of five or a dance of two, is a mystery to me so far.

Do not say that you would kill me, my lady. Why would you wish to? For, as the poet has said:

_Yea, they shall say, earth's womb has borne in vain_

_New things, and never this best thing again;_

_Borne days and men, borne fruits and wars and wine,_

_Seasons and songs, but no song more like mine._

Would you wish to deprive the world of a song like mine, my lady, however much you may hate me? You brought me blueberries.

_In regards to the song, _

_Evan Rosier._

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

_November 29th, 1997_

I feel no guilt from my rape of you, Evan. Did you think I really did? And if you wish to make my luring of you into a purely personal matter, I can only think that you do not understand the meaning of hatred, and even less, the meaning of darkness. We are Dark wizards, and we hate each other. I told you, once, what that means.

It is you who chose to ignore it.

_I wish you were dead, my dear;_

_I would give you, had I to give,_

_Some death too bitter to fear;_

_It is better to die than live._

Make it the dance of five, and the death that will kill the forest and the tree.

Because, as you said once, I did give you blueberries.

_Henrietta Bulstrode._

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS_  
_

_December 1st, 1997_

_My dearest, most bloodthirsty lady, of all mortal women most like a vampire:_

You pretend that this is all a matter of hatred and ancient tradition? But I know you. You told me once to smell your arousal when we danced together. I prefer to make it a matter of love. Now, darkness, I will grant you. We cannot move for very darkness when we interact.

_For the crown of our life as it closes_

_Is darkness, the fruit thereof dust;_

_No thorns go as deep as a rose's,_

_And love is more cruel than lust._

You would always choose the cruelest way, Henrietta. You, therefore, love me. You may not know it, but you do. How else can a woman like you, my Lady of Pain, who would rather rape a man than lie with him, react to me?

_In regards to the pain,_

_Evan Rosier._

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

_December 11th, 1997_

You are maddened because I understand you, Evan, because I can listen to your talk of love and walk away unmoved, because I am not taken in by you, but take you in instead. You successfully fascinated Harry into worrying about your letters, into taking you seriously as a player of the game. I refuse to be drawn into the same trap, because I know what you are.

And love? There is no love such as you describe in me. Perhaps, once, there was. I must concede that, for in past years I did not know my mind so well. But now the situation has turned.

_I that have slept awake, and you_

_Sleep, who last year were well awake._

_Though love do all that love can do,_

_My heart will never ache or break_

_For your heart's sake._

Think about it, Evan. Think carefully, and you will understand why I am doing this.

_Henrietta Bulstrode._

SSSSSSSSSS

_December 12th, 1997_

_My lady who does not deny she is my lady:_

Your quotations of poems are inspired. And now the longest night draws near, less than ten days away now, hovering in the exquisite air. Will you rape me among the ruins, when all falls? I wish you would. I wish you would fling yourself on me, unable to help yourself, and do what you should have done the night that I first tried to take you and you took me instead.

The night that you tied our fates together.

_One girds himself to serve another,_

_Whose father was the dust, whose mother_

_The little dead red worm therein;_

_They find no fruit of things they cherish;_

_The goodness of a man shall perish,_

_It shall be one thing with his sin._

This is more than you think, my lady, more than quotations can embody or raspberries can end.

_In regards to fate, _

_Evan Rosier._

SSSSSSSSSSSS_  
_

_December 20th, 1997_

Fate is nothing to me, Evan. There is only one thing I want from you, and in the end it shall come to me, because you don't know what I want, because you fling yourself headlong into the net, because you cannot help yourself.

_Be the ways of thy giving_

_As mine were to thee;_

_The free life of thy living,_

_Be the gift of it free;_

_Not as servant to lord, nor as master to slave, shalt thou give thee to me._

Come, then, Evan. Let it be the dance of five. And then let our dance of two, and the manner of giving you will never understand until it is too late, commence.

Remember, dear one, that I am tame to no man's hand.

_Henrietta Bulstrode._


	66. Scything

**Warning:** This is the first of four Midwinter chapters, all of which will contain emotional turmoil, and have more specific warnings posted at the top of them. The specific warnings for this one are **gore and a cliffhanger warning.**

**Chapter Fifty-Two: Scything**

Indigena closed her eyes for a moment. Wind whipped past her, stirring ragged trails and tatter-ends of snow through the air, but as long as she didn't have to see it, she could pretend Midwinter wasn't there, wasn't happening.

Except that it was.

She opened her eyes, but turned around so that she was looking at the vines that coiled in the mouth of the burrow. They were her toughest and strongest, not single plants but many strands braided together, and they writhed and curled around each other as she looked them. One supported the enormous weight of the horn hammer she'd grown in her garden a few weeks ago, and others carried secondary weapons that she would need. Indigena stroked the head of one, and smiled in helpless wonder as it curled a tendril around to lick at her palm.

"We go, Indigena."

She faced forward and nodded again as she looked at her Lord. Her bad mood had calmed. So long as her green darlings existed in the world, she could pretend that everything would be all right.

She walked, with the vines slithering behind her like a passel of snakes, towards Sylvan and Oaken. Sylvan was the one in this world right now. He gave her a dark smile that contrasted with the dreamy haze in his green eyes.

"Do you think our Lord would let us have the Malfoy child?" he whispered. "We wish to repay him for hurting us."

"So long as you hurt his body and not his magic, I don't see why not." Indigena waggled her fingers in a specific signal. The vines curled up and around her shoulders, carefully shifting so that they could balance the hammer and her as well as their own green weight. From the very faintly impressed expression on Sylvan's face, Indigena supposed she had disappeared behind a wall of plants.

"You remember what our Lord told you?" she demanded. "Wait until the right moment, go to the Headmistress's office first, and do not, on any condition whatsoever, hurt Connor Potter?"

"We know," said Sylvan, his voice faintly echoed as Oaken began to appear in his place. "Of course we know. It would be easier if we could capture the boy and hold him until our Lord needs him, you know."

"You must ask him about that," Indigena murmured, and then closed her eyes and, keeping careful track of all the additions to her body, Apparated.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry was standing on the top of the Astronomy Tower, staring into the sky, when he saw the moon go out. One moment it gleamed above him, a waning crescent; the next, it was simply gone, as if a trailing wing had covered it, or someone had wiped a silver stain from an ebony table.

Harry stepped back from the battlements, his heart pounding hard. He could feel the magic stirring lazily above him. And then Kanerva laughed like a loon behind him, and he knew the wild Dark's assault had come.

"To your station," he snarled, gliding past her.

"I know that." Kanerva laughed again, and then vaulted into the air over the side of the Tower, unraveling as she fell, splinters of white and black and gray and silver that flew towards the four corners of the school. Harry shook his head as he increased his pace. He could only hope that Kanerva would keep her mind _on_ the battle, and not flying and wreaking havoc with the wild Dark. But since he needed her power to defend Hogwarts too badly, and he would be fighting Voldemort, he would have to hope that she could concentrate on her own. There was no way to continually check on her and bring her back into line.

He met Jing-Xi on the stairs; she had felt the shifting and stirring of the magical forces even more acutely than he had, perhaps, because she embodied the opposition to them. She gave him a tense nod. "I will remain in the middle of the fourth floor," she said, "ready to dash to the aid of any student who needs me." Her black hair danced and tangled and lashed around her, moving at least as rapidly as Kanerva's winds. Given that the wind protecting her had been a gift from Kanerva, that was not a surprise.

Harry gave her a hasty smile and then slid past. He touched his wrist as he ran and called on Draco, who was in their bedroom at the moment. He'd been scheduled to come up and join Harry in a few minutes, but Slytherin House needed reassurance, and he was the best one to provide it.

The phoenix song warbled, and Draco's voice said, "I can feel it coming, Harry. What are you doing?"

"Going out in front of the school to battle Voldemort, of course," said Harry. "_Stay inside the school, Draco._"

Draco was quiet. This was something they'd avoided talking directly about, because, the few times they'd tried, they'd got into shouting matches. But Harry could feel Draco's mind ticking over, and arriving at the obvious conclusions. He couldn't help in a battle like this, where all the participants would be Lord-level or stronger. He would have to stay inside the school and act like a noncombatant, never mind the stubborn courage that had led him to follow Harry into every battle so far.

No response, and no response, while Harry ran down first one flight of stairs and then another, and then leaped a gap that a moving staircase had designed to give him trouble. Harry snarled the way he had with Kanerva. "Draco, do you hear me? Do I have your word? Or do I have to knock you unconscious and ask Jing-Xi to keep you that way for the duration of the battle?"

"That's compulsion," Draco said, and only the smallness of his voice, the fear seeping from him, prevented Harry from losing his temper completely.

"Draco, so help me—"

"All right," Draco whispered, as if capitulating to the law of gravity. "Yes, Harry, if that's what you need from me right now, then yes."

Harry said, "Thank you," and hoped the depth of emotion in his voice would compensate for the fact that he couldn't kiss Draco from this distance. "Stay safe. I love you."

Draco uttered a murmur that might have been the same thing, but given that tears were choking him now, Harry didn't expect it to be clear. He cut off the communication spell and summoned Connor's attention and voice.

"Stay inside your Tower," he said.

"Harry—"

"I will come back from the grave and haunt you if you don't, I swear."

"Harry—"

"Yes?" Harry had reached the entrance hall. He could feel the prickling burn in his scar, along with the weight of the magic on his shoulders. Voldemort was here, and, from the sense of things, standing and staring at the front doors of the school, summoning Harry with his presence alone, rather than coming inside to find him. Harry gave a silent thanks to Merlin for the Dark Lord's sense of the dramatic.

"Good luck."

"Thank you, Connor. I love you, little brother," Harry said, and heard it back, and then turned around and nodded into a corner alcove hidden near the Great Hall. "_Petrificus Totalus._"

There came the sound of a body sagging against the stone. Harry waved his hand, and Snape floated into view, utterly frozen, his eyes spitting black fire. Harry winced a little at the thought of what would come when the battle was done and his father could let him have a piece of his mind.

_That's assuming that you survive this battle_, he reminded himself, and then shook his head and reoriented to the present.

"How many times have I told you to stay here?" he asked rhetorically. "I understand that you consider yourself my father, but you need to listen to me as a battle commander. Just so you know, Draco and Connor are acting more like adults than you are right now." He flicked his hand, and laid Snape carefully down on the stones, so that there was no chance he would fall over and hurt himself. "Now hopefully that will be enough to make you _stay_ there. And I love you, sir, but for Merlin's _sake_."

And he turned and made for the doors.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Draco put his head in his hands and breathed for a long moment. He didn't want to think of Harry going into danger without him. He _wouldn't_ think of Harry going into danger without him. He—

Oh, fuck, Harry was going into danger without him.

Draco clenched one hand on his arm and seized a bit of skin, then pinched it, hard. He would have to have something to occupy his attention while his not-quite-joined partner went into battle, and this was better than pacing or yelling at the first-years huddling near his door.

Of course, he _could_ do something even more useful, if he could only overcome the image of Harry, very small and very brave, going out to face a towering, titanic power.

There were still people in Slytherin who needed reassurance, especially those whose closest contact with the war was rumors and tales and the sight of grim-faced adult wizards and witches in dueling classes. And Draco could make sure they knew the way to the escape tunnel, the one Connor had trapped with Neville's lilies, in case something happened. They had drilled on a way to find it again and again, but it might not have been enough.

He stood and opened the door of his bedroom. He surprised a first-year boy just about to knock. The boy squeaked and tucked his hands together behind his back, as if to prove he wasn't touching anything.

Draco sought the name in the recesses of his imagination, and finally found it. "Malachi," he said. "Did you need something?"

"I—we just hoped that you could show us the way to escape if we needed it." Malachi swallowed convulsively. "One more time."

Draco smiled at him, and, cheered, the little boy smiled back. "I was just coming to show you that," Draco said. "Come on, we'll need to line up in front of the door to the Slytherin common room…"

SSSSSSSSSSS

"Promise me," said Connor, taking Parvati's hand in his and holding it to his lips, "that if something happens to me, if I fall, you'll get the other Gryffindors out of the Tower alive."

Parvati shifted and stared up at him from beneath her eyelashes, a trick that usually got her away from whatever it was that Connor wanted her to promise. Not this time, though, and after a moment of gazing like that, she looked away from him, her hand tightening uneasily. "Connor—"

"Promise me," said Connor again. He didn't feel frightened, even though he knew he was discussing his possible death. He felt as if a golden wind were blowing through him instead, the consciousness and the _sureness_ that other people's lives were more important than his own. He wondered if this was the way Harry felt all the time. If so, Connor couldn't really blame him for the way he'd acted when people had died on his watch, and for his insistence that Connor, Draco, and others he loved remain inside the walls of the school while he went forth to battle with Voldemort. "I'll be dead, Parvati, and you won't be able to help me anyway. Promise me."

And then she ducked her head and nodded, and Connor felt badly for having to push her. He took her in his arms and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead, feeling his arms ache and tremble with the urge to crush her close and never let her go.

And then Harry met Voldemort.

They could tell from the way the school shook, and then the wild Dark burst into laughter. Parvati cried out and grabbed her ears in pain. So did every other Light-Declared Gryffindor in the common room, which was most of them. Connor made himself keep his hands down, so that he could guide Parvati to a chair when she looked ready to fall over, and gather the others in with a calm, assessing glance.

"Sit down!" he shouted, while the laughter grew deeper and richer. "Remember what we practiced. We have to be ready to leave the Tower if the worst happens."

Most people obeyed him. Those who couldn't, Connor went over and pressed into seats. Then he turned to face the door of the Tower and drew his wand.

He had no guarantees that the wild Dark would come through the door, of course. It just seemed likely, and that was enough to make him face in that direction. He had to face one direction. Why not that one?

His grip tightened on his wand, partially so that he didn't have to imagine his brother facing Voldemort across the battlefield.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Henrietta knew the moment when it came. Of course, she had never imagined that the wild Dark and the Dark Lord would attack _subtly_, but she had not known if there would be a clear signal, either. She could feel the power gathering thickly in her blood for the moment before the storm burst, though, and then the laughter came, and the school shook to its foundations as two powerful wizards met.

Such strength. Such power. Such forces circling and clashing over her head. Henrietta admired them, but she also knew that this was not her battle. She was not a Lady, and she could not match them.

She felt the Light Lady answering the wild Dark, spreading her power throughout the school, safeguarding the Towers and the Slytherin and Hufflepuff common rooms, bracing them against any damage the wild Dark might take it into its head to inflict. Henrietta appreciated that, too, as much as she thought it might not matter. But it was offensive and not defensive battle she was destined for this night.

She touched, once more, the circle of runes she'd created that spelled out E-VA-N, and then turned and strode out of her rooms. The walls trembled constantly around her, and now and then a stone juddered loose. Henrietta rolled her eyes and shook her head. _Unnecessary dramatics. The wild Dark would frighten more people if it had crept up on us, but I suppose that is not its nature._

She swept out of the hallway and towards the doors of the entrance. She paused when she saw no Evan Rosier waiting for her, though, and raised her eyebrows. She supposed he might be out in the Forest, trying to witness the battle between Harry and Voldemort, or simply exulting in the display of power.

Well, until he brought the three other people to her and began the dance of five, she had nothing else to do. So Henrietta settled in the entrance hall and admired the display of lightning and power through the gaps in the doors. She was so close to the entrance that she would be able to leave very easily.

SSSSSSSSSSS

Harry could feel the boiling rage when he stepped out of the school. Most of it came from Voldemort; the wild Dark's primary emotion, as he knew when he was able to sort out the emotions facing him from the ones in the sky, was still amusement. Kanerva whooped and wheeled and laughed somewhere with it—and kept to her position on the four corners of the school, Harry prayed.

"My heir."

Harry looked at Voldemort. He had wondered if he would be afraid when this moment came. The man had enough magic to darken the air with a shadow of his own, the way the wild Dark had wiped out the moon, and to make the skin along Harry's arms feel greasy. He also had new eyes, balls of flaming red power that drifted in front of his sockets and sometimes rolled as if they would roam around his face like Moody's magical eye.

But Harry didn't feel afraid. Instead, staring at Voldemort and remembering the Ministry, he simply felt incredibly pissed off.

"Voldemort," he said, and then he stepped backward and slipped into his lynx form.

Voldemort roared in surprise and outrage, and then Harry turned and ran into the Forbidden Forest, taking the path he'd trotted day and night until the image of it blazed on the back of his eyes, leaping lightly over roots and ducking under the sweeping branches, following the strong centaur scent.

Harry, himself, would have hesitated before he followed his enemy into the Forbidden Forest, or in fact tried to face him on any other battleground than the most appropriate one, the one he himself had chosen. But Voldemort was mighty, and he really did seem to believe that the choice of ground wouldn't make any difference.

He came after Harry like winter. Harry could see already-frosted branches sagging and dying around him, and the grass beneath his paws turned to sere, black ash. He ignored that, and kept running. There was nothing he could do about Voldemort's effect on the Forest, and in any case, what was happening now was still nothing compared to what he could be doing if he had access to Hogwarts, or to the centaurs and Runespoors and other magical creatures who lived here. The grass would grow again, the trees would revive or fall and have new ones planted in their places. Harry already had all the guilt he could handle.

He burst into the clearing he'd trapped, and turned as if exhausted, exaggerating his panting breaths, to face Voldemort. Already, the nets around him gleamed and fired, traps of Light that were perfectly obvious if the wizard had a touch of Light in him, but nor so obvious when one had given his soul to the Dark.

Voldemort burst through the last of the bracken and stood triumphantly regarding him. Heavy wings stretched upward from his hunched shoulders, dripping drops of darkness like the greasy black features of a vulture. His white hands were clawed and crabbed enough to resemble a vulture's claws, too. Harry felt a moment's bitter amusement. His right hand had just graduated from a black-red claw to a fully usable set of fingers a few days ago. Perhaps there was more than one connection between them, making them more than magical ancestor and heir.

Then he shook his head to clear it of such vain imaginings. Of course there was more than one connection between them. That was the whole problem. He crouched low and swished his tail slowly back and forth, then changed to human as Voldemort flung an almost friendly volley of black lightning his way.

Harry leaped above the lightning as he changed. He shouldn't have been able to, but the stored strength in the earth and the magic that shimmered and poured through him now made the impossible possible. As he turned, he caught at his _absorbere_ gift. It opened, and in the next moment, as he landed lightly on the earth, he drew sparks from the Light net under the nearest tree, sending up small, biting serpents to sting Voldemort's foot.

Voldemort hissed and drew back from him, eyes darting to try and see what had injured him. In return, Harry snatched a bit of power from him, unraveling it like thread from a spool, and drank it down.

Voldemort's eyes snapped forward, and he gave a slow shake of his head. "Do you really think it will be that easy, my heir?" he asked. "That you can take my magic from me with small distractions?"

"I have something more important than distractions, Tom," said Harry. A faint flush touched that bone-white, noseless face. Harry resisted the urge to fall about laughing. _He still hates his Muggle name so much. How can someone so powerful allow such small things to trouble him?_ "Do you want to know what it is?"

"I would be _fascinated_," Voldemort said, and then slammed down a barrier on the tunnel between them, one Harry hadn't felt before. It acted like a sponge backed with steel, absorbing his power towards Voldemort, but not letting any of his enemy's magic through. Harry had to admit he was impressed.

He whistled, though, and the bird appeared, circling above them for a moment before it struck Voldemort a resounding scratch across his left shoulder. Harry was resolved to let the bird do whatever it wanted in the effort to distract Voldemort. Since he couldn't actually hurt it without closing the tunnel or killing Harry, it was one of the best allies Harry had.

"I'm _angry_ this time," Harry told him cheerfully. "And I hate you on behalf of other people, not for what you did to me."

"Hatred is hatred, Harry," Voldemort purred, and his eyes widened, and Harry felt a warning tingle in his scar, a moment before Voldemort dissolved the barrier between them in the attempt to call on his loathing.

Harry slammed all his strength into Voldemort at once, attacking with nets from beneath the earth, with his _absorbere_ gift, with the sheer weight of all the magic he'd summoned and could use. Voldemort did buckle a bit, in sheer surprise, and Harry reached out and filled his gullet as full as he could of the black wings of magic hovering above Voldemort's shoulders.

He'd practiced, in the weeks since the Ministry attack. He'd swallowed magic from the foulest artifacts Regulus could find, and from Dark spells that Henrietta and Snape had cast for his sake. It was still a struggle to absorb that much magic, like swallowing an entire whale's corpse of tainted flesh, but he had done it. Without the barrier between them, Voldemort's enhanced ability amplified Harry's. He was stronger because his enemy was stronger.

Harry had planned that when he thought of how his visions and Voldemort's own _absorbere_ gift had changed after the Dark Lord's resurrection. If his enemy had strengthened because he had, it shouldn't be a one-way track. Harry ought to be able to do the same thing.

And he could.

Voldemort's eyes met his, and Harry saw that the amusement had died out of them. Now he looked ready to kill, and so he lashed forward with his magic, a sweep like a crocodile's tail, or a dragon's extended claws.

It would have killed if it had hit directly, but Harry moved, and it sideswiped him. And then the bird was tearing at Voldemort's right shoulder, and a net beneath the earth captured Harry and towed him in random directions, and Harry let out his own magic, fierce and free and _at last_, and had the pleasure of seeing his enemy stagger.

And so then their battle was joined in earnest.

SSSSSSSSS

The wild Dark laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

Kanerva was drunk on it, rolling on it, around it, with it. She could feel the Dark coaxing her to go further, to dip into the maelstrom at the center of the sky and see the oblivion it had readied.

Thoughts of duty, friendship, old obligations, called on her to stay where she was. The power she served danced and tempted her, and called her further on, into the mystery that she had longed to explore ever since the first time she had gazed up at a starless night, ever since she had first stared into the sea.

There was no contest.

Kanerva spread her arms and rolled away from Hogwarts, leaping from wind to wind, knowing that somewhere below the wild Dark had begun an assault on Hogwarts's wards, but not caring. How _could_ she care? The whole of the night was before her.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Minerva leaned against her desk and closed her eyes in supreme irritation. Of course, it was understandable that she couldn't go out and help in the battle between Voldemort and Harry. That was a contest for Lord-level wizards, and more people than just her were forbidden from participating in it.

But she could not even patrol the school, and make sure that the students stayed safely in their common rooms and no one had the "grand" idea of watching the battle from a window. Poppy had ruled even that activity too dangerous for her, given the added stress of knowing that a student she loved was battling Voldemort. She had to stay put, in her office, and think and worry and fret, instead of dashing about.

Minerva had tried to explain that "dashing about" would let her express energy and so ease the thinking and worrying and fretting. Poppy had muttered something about "Gryffindors" and refused to hear it.

_So little I can do, _she thought, clinging to the desk as a tooth-jarring rattle echoed through the stones. _So little I can help._

And then she gasped and bent double, because something had seized the wards and begun to pull on them at the same moment that something had struck from below, making the school shake. Minerva, connected to the wards, knew there was danger, but not from what. She shook her head and tried to stand, while echoes of shock traveled through her and her heart labored wildly.

"Minerva!"

She looked up sharply as the shade of Godric appeared in front of her. The hair from his head and beard was sticking out wildly. His eyes were so wide that they appeared to have taken over his face. He had a hand extended towards her, for help, but even he wavered and danced like a heat shimmer as another pair of double shocks hit Hogwarts.

Minerva made her voice calm, as she would have with a first-year Gryffindor student who missed her mum. "What is it, Godric?"

"An attack from below." The Founder's shade almost wailed, dancing back and forth. "A hammer smashing the stones. Indigena Yaxley's vines are coming up through the tunnels."

"The tunnels are warded—" Minerva began, and then a blow landed which she _knew_ had taken rocks from the front of the school, and she heard her students screaming, distantly, up the connections of the wards.

"They _were_," said Godric, and danced again. "The wild Dark is eating the wards, Minerva. And Jing-Xi can't stop it! She's not nearly as strong as it is, especially at this time of year."

"Kanerva?"

"The Lady Stormgale is gone." In Godric's voice, for a moment, was the deep disapproval that surrounded his opinion of most Dark wizards.

Minerva ran towards the door, and then stopped, gasping. It wasn't only the pull of the wards. It felt as if someone had punctured her heart with a pin. _Merlin, _it hurt. And she could hear the children screaming, and now the wild Dark was scything into the school from above and Indigena Yaxley from below.

If they were not careful, this would be another Ministry all over again.

The Ministry—

Then, it was as if Merlin himself had reached down and placed clarity into her head. Minerva straightened, and breathed deeply. She concentrated on the drawing of air, and did not let even the screams of her students distract her, until she was sure that she was thinking logically, anticipating the consequences of her plan.

"Godric," she said, and the calm of her voice made him start to attention. "Send Rowena and Helga to guide the children out of the school. The tunnel that Connor and Harry found. Have them take that way."

"It dives beneath the school," said Godric, hovering uncertainly.

Minerva gave him a faint smile. "And not as far as Indigena Yaxley is under yet, unless I'm mistaken. In any case, I don't think we can stop her." She put a hand over her heart. "If I run, as I'll have to if I want to escape the school alive, my heart is going to burst, Godric. There's no Hogwarts anymore, or there won't be in a very short time—"

_Clang_, sang the hammers from above and below. Chips of stone pinwheeled past Minerva's head. From the corner of her eye, she could see the misty shapes that marked Rowena and Helga, one of them racing upward, one diving down. She nodded her satisfaction and returned her eyes to Godric's openly pleading face.

"Hogwarts will be gone," she reiterated. "It's important that we get as many students out alive as we can." She drew her wand and tapped her left wrist. "Mr. Potter," she said. "Do you hear me?"

"Yes, Headmistress." Connor's voice was collected, though fierce. Minerva felt a moment's deep pride in her Gryffindors.

"Get the students out _now_. This is not a drill. The wild Dark is coming, and I will not have the Tower fall on our heads."

"Yes, Headmistress," Connor said. "I'll tell the others."

"Good. Farewell, Mr. Potter."

"Headmistress?"

Gently, McGonagall cut the communication spell, and then caught Godric's questioning eye again. He looked half-desperate, which she could understand. He might have an inkling of what she meant to do, but he could hardly like the idea.

"I'll die trying to escape, Godric," she said. Every word fell like its own hammer, and if Indigena Yaxley and the wild Dark continued attacking the school outside her office, Minerva was honestly unaware of it. Every unimportant sensation faded, and she focused solely on the now. "I want to make sure that my death serves a _purpose, _that I don't die while running away from it but on my feet, facing it."

"Minerva," Godric whispered. "What do you plan to do?"

Minerva turned and looked at the Sword of Gryffindor on the wall.

"Minerva," Godric whispered. "No."

"Yes," she said. "He cannot be allowed to have it, do you see? He cannot be allowed to take back this Horcrux, as he will surely do. If he's attacking the school, that means he does not care about its safety as a hiding place anymore. I would not be surprised if he has detailed Death Eaters to fetch it. It _must_ be destroyed, Godric, and the only way for that to happen is for someone to fall on it." Minerva placed a hand over her chest and smiled. Beneath her palm, her heart labored on. "And this old heart—well, it could break in many less appropriate ways."

"Ah, Minerva." Godric sounded helpless. "You—you cannot do this."

The air sparked, and then filled with sweet thunder. Minerva knew that sound, that feeling, from endless descriptions by Harry. A prophecy was coming true.

"Yes, I can," she said. Her fear was entirely gone. Courage had her, the virtue of her House, the legacy of the McGonagall line. "I am going to, Godric. The Unassailable Curse can be broken if someone dies as a willing sacrifice trying to destroy a Horcrux. That is what I intend to do."

"I—"

"I will need someone," said McGonagall serenely, "to fetch Harry when this is done, because he must destroy the shard of Tom Riddle that will come forth from the sword. And I think you can hold and distract that shade, Godric. He can't possess you; you don't have a body. I want you to make sure there is no way he can take mine, in the last moments between life and death."

She locked her eyes with his. "And I will need someone to hold the sword steady."

Godric closed his eyes.

"We are Gryffindors, you and I," Minerva continued. "We understand that sometimes there is no substitute for a sacrifice, that you do what you can. And you know my desire to die on my feet."

He stood there for a long moment.

"It is right that we help get rid of the taint on your sword, you and I," Minerva added. "It was yours, forged for your hand, and I was of the House that produced those who so tortured Harry and contributed to the degradation of the world and the Light in our world. We have a debt to repay."

An endless moment later, and he nodded. He moved behind her desk, opened the glass case, and took out the Sword, carefully solidifying his hands so that he could clutch it. He stepped around the desk and held it, point towards her.

Minerva spent a moment studying the blade. The dark line of evil still ran along the edge. She altered her position, carefully. She remembered an aunt, who had trained with swords, telling her once that it was extraordinarily difficult to stab someone through the heart, because the ribs were in the way, and more often the blade would simply get caught on and scrape along the bone.

She looked with a final smile to Godric, and, holding in mind the thought that she dedicated her death to the destruction of the Horcrux, she ran forward.

The sword impaled her like a stronger version of the pin-puncturing pain she'd felt earlier. Minerva felt it tear through flesh and bone, and then through muscle, and had a moment when she thought she saw the dark face of an older Tom Riddle unfolding from it.

Godric called her name.

And then death came for her, a springing black dog, a curl of prophecy and sweet thunder, the knowledge that she had done something right. She felt herself fall to the floor in the moment before it settled fully.

_Thus Gryffindor pays its debts._

Minerva McGonagall died triumphant.


	67. The Fall

Once again, warnings apply to this chapter: **violence, gore, and a big freaking cliffhanger.**

**Chapter Fifty-Three: The Fall**

Snape gathered his magic and struck against the Body-Bind on himself. It still wouldn't move, but he thought it showed signs of cracking and weakening in some vulnerable places, such as around his joints.

_Rather like the walls._

The entrance hall was swaying and dancing in a way that he'd hoped to never see any of Hogwarts sway and dance, even in an earthquake. Chips and dust, and sometimes larger chunks of stone, regularly fell from the walls now. So far, none had done anything more than graze a line of blood across his temple, but Snape was sure that could not last. Again he flung himself against Harry's Body-Bind, which would have yielded by now if it were the work of any ordinary wizard, and again it cracked but didn't give way.

Then footsteps pounded towards him, and a voice half-shattered from the rush of panting yelled, "_Finite Incantatem!_"

The Body-Bind broke. Snape was on his feet in an instant, though he stumbled as limbs dead from lack of circulation in an awkward position failed to catch him. Regulus's arm curved around his shoulders and held him upright, then began urging him towards the doors of the entrance hall.

"Come on," Regulus breathed. "Let's get out of here."

Snape set his feet. His mind was already racing, perhaps as a result of having more than enough time to consider his situation while he lay under that rippling ceiling, and he knew Harry was safe outside. There were many other people who weren't, however. "No."

"Severus—" Regulus began, in dangerous tones.

"My Slytherins have not yet escaped," Snape snarled at him, and, turning back, cast a stabilizing spell on the nearest wall. It froze, though whirls and puffs of dust still drifted away from it. "I am going to get them out. Whether you help me or abandon them is not my affair." And he began to sprint towards the dungeons, ignoring the words that Regulus muttered under his breath as he ran after him.

"You know," Regulus said, in a grumble that Snape was not entirely sure he was supposed to hear when they reached the staircase, "the only reason I put up with things like this is because I love you."

Snape's shoulders stiffened, but he didn't turn around. There were far more important stakes at the moment than deciding how Regulus had meant that.

And then the wards around him twanged and shrieked, and Snape dropped to one knee. He would have gone pitching headlong down the stairs if Regulus hadn't caught him, this time by the edge of the robe. Snape could hear Regulus asking frantic questions, but he was in no mood to answer them. The wards felt like hot wires stretched across his stomach. Tears of pain glimmered at the edges of his eyes but couldn't make it down his cheeks. Every single bone in his body had become a case of transparent steel filled with molten lead.

He knew what that meant, what it must mean. The wards were connected to Minerva. They would never have turned to him and tried to make him essentially Headmaster of Hogwarts unless—

Unless Minerva was gone.

Snape sank his immediate disbelief and fear into Occlumency pools. He had no time to quarrel with the evidence, either. He _must_ get as many students as he could out of Hogwarts.

After all, he was responsible for them now.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

He _felt_ it.

He _felt_ the moment that his Unassailable Curse on the Sword of Gryffindor, the most magnificent of the defenses he had wrought to protect his Horcruxes—the necessary protection when he had left the Sword hanging in a place so full of his enemies—snapped. Someone had run the blade through her heart. Someone had fallen. Someone had broken the curse.

And all around him, in that moment, was the charged thunder of a prophecy, and the Lord Voldemort heard a sound he had not heard in more than a dozen years, since the creation of his last Horcrux: he heard Death laughing, a jackal's howl. A black dog's shadow passed over the corner of his eye, sweeping along the ground and dancing mockingly over his vision before vanishing.

No. He could not die. He would not die. He was the Lord Voldemort, and he was immortal.

There was still the chance that he could save his Horcrux. The Unassailable Curse had been broken, but the shard of soul had not yet been destroyed. He would enter the Headmistress's office, capture the shard, put it into another object, and carry it away. That object would be only a temporary container, of course, because one _must_ have a suitable trophy to hold the shard of soul. But he would find one.

He must, however, withdraw from this useless and dangerous battle with his heir in order to complete his task.

He pulled his magic in and leaped, Apparating through the barriers of the tattered and dying wards to the office. He felt the ripple of excess magic that accompanied him, but did not understand it until he landed and turned.

Harry had Apparated right behind him.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

"Get out, _now!_"

Not one Gryffindor who heard him questioned him. Connor was glad for that, at least. They'd drilled endlessly in the Tower for just such a moment as this, and the children's faces were terrified, but they were lining up obediently in front of the door in the wall which would lead them down into the tunnel. Connor was not sure how safe the tunnel was, given the spiderweb cracks traveling between the stones, but he knew that their final destination, beyond the Forbidden Forest, was much safer than the Hogwarts grounds, and he wouldn't want to lead the children out along moving staircases and between tumbling pillars, either.

Parvati snatched up a little girl who stumbled and began crying, and nodded to him. Connor took his place at the back of the line, murmuring comfort to those who needed it, and saying that _of course_ Hogwarts would still be standing when they came back after the Christmas holidays, Meredith was silly to think that it wouldn't.

He didn't really believe that, though. In his heart of hearts, Connor knew this was the end.

They ran down the staircase inside the walls, faster, it seemed to Connor, than Parvati's gleam of light had gone when they first explored the tunnel. Down and down, and then Parvati whispered, "Padma," with relief in his voice as clear as a shout to Connor. They'd arrived at the landing where the tunnel diving from Ravenclaw Tower met the one diving from Gryffindor. Connor nodded briskly to the Ravenclaws he could see, and bit his lip to keep from commenting on anyone missing. He didn't know for sure how many Ravenclaws had stayed for the Christmas holidays, so these might be the only ones left.

Luna, who stood in the front of the line with Padma, brushed her hair from her eyes and gave him a sorrowful smile. "Did you know that the stones had dreams of falling, sometimes?" she whispered. "They thought they were going home, to rest in the earth. They didn't know this would happen."

"I know," said Connor, making his voice soothing, and then shouted again. "Now, down the stairs, in single file. Divide up the way we taught you, younger students spaced around the older."

Again, not a single person questioned him, though Connor saw some with deadly pale faces and some Ravenclaws he knew had caused trouble in the past, like Margaret Parsons, who had tormented Harry and his snake in fifth year. They did as told, and Connor began to entertain a faint sliver of hope that they would all escape alive from the groaning school after all.

Ginny walked past him, holding a first-year in her arms and leading a second-year by the hand. Ron followed with two more second-years, though he'd probably used a Lightening Charm to hold them. Neville gave Connor a nervous smile and touched the whistle around his neck that he could use to control the potted lilies in the tunnel, if necessary. Connor was grateful he'd brought it. He glanced back, counting the number of heads and legs still to pass; he was remaining as rear guard.

And then the stone behind those still arriving gave a tortured _moan_, and began to fall.

"Connor!" he heard Parvati scream.

Connor had no time to do anything but think with his muscles, the way he did when he dived after the Snitch in Quidditch. He let his legs carry him, his hands shoot out and close on the robes of the two children nearest the top of the stairs, and he tugged them violently forward, spilling them to the ground beside him, halfway over the steps, crying out in shock.

There were others he couldn't save, others still screaming and reaching for help, perhaps a quarter of the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws who had remained. The stone came down on top of them, was coming down, was falling.

Connor ducked his head, rolled on top of the two children he'd saved, and cast the strongest _Protego_ he knew above them.

He heard rocks bouncing, someone shouting, the walls of the school shaking themselves apart. He didn't care, couldn't care. He threw all his strength and all his heart into the Shield Charm that protected him and his two charges, and thought over and over again that it must not fall.

Cracks ran through the Charm before it was done, but it held. At last Connor raised his head and found himself and the two children on the edge of a sea of stone. Mounded, broken walls lay above them, with a glimpse of starry sky somewhere over the edges. Under the stones was silence, and perhaps a trace of blood. Connor didn't know for certain. He couldn't see those who were crushed.

He turned and looked down the tunnel. Still stable, it seemed. He drew his wand and began to cast Stabilizing Charms at the stones.

"Connor?" Parvati whispered.

"Still alive." Connor steadied his voice, thrust his shock away, and began to concentrate on the living. Gryffindors were good at this, when they needed to be. Give up the lives that you couldn't save to save those you could. The important thing now was not to let people start crying or thinking about how it could have been them, because either would prevent them from moving. They _had_ to take charge of those who had managed to escape the fall and get them out of here. "Use Stabilizing Charms on the walls, all of you who know them, and Lightening Charms on your bodies. Luna? Can you talk to the walls, make them hold as steady as they can?"

"I'll try," Luna whispered, and, moving forward, laid a hand over the nearest crack in the stone. "But they are so hurt. I don't know if they'll listen to me."

"Do what you can," said Connor. He felt dust on his lips when he licked them, and a trail of blood running down the side of his face. He couldn't care. He soared above the minor concerns, as Harry would have labeled them, just as Harry would have soared, and focused on the living and their safety.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Draco guided the rest of Slytherin House out the common room door and towards the entrance of the tunnel Harry had shown him by remembering his mother.

She had once received a visit from a witch Draco was sure now belonged to a family who could have killed them. She had risen when the house elves announced her, nodded regally, and then turned to Draco. Her face had been a cool, calm void that left no _time_ for fear.

"Draco," she said, "go into your room, and wait."

And because she had looked and sounded like that, Draco had. Narcissa had come to him a half-hour later, and held him silently, but not closely, with one hand stroking his hair. Draco had gazed into her face, afraid to ask what was wrong, but she had finally smiled down at him and shaken her head.

"Nothing to do with us, dearest," she'd murmured.

And it had not been. Draco never heard the witch's name as a guest at Malfoy Manor again. When he heard of the death of the entire family in a strange mass poisoning incident a year later he'd received a glimmer, his first, of the extent of his father's power, and the rage he would go into when he found out someone had confronted and threatened his wife.

Now, Draco clung to the fact that there was too much happening for him to cower in a corner, or even panic about what might have caused the school to fall, or where Harry was, or whether the banging and booming in one corner of the tunnels was coming closer to them or moving further away. He led the children forward. They came into the corridors. They went towards the tunnel, and Draco stood aside to let them enter it, his eyes moving back and forth constantly, his hand on his wand as he fired Stabilizing Charms at the walls and did what he could to slow the breathing of children who looked as if they were about to go into a panic attack. The line emerging from the Slytherin common room was shorter than it should have been. Draco didn't let himself think about that, either.

"Draco!"

He turned. Snape was stumbling down the corridor towards him, with Regulus Black at his shoulder, looking half-desperate and half-strong.

Draco didn't let himself collapse just because an adult was here, though, since doing that would be to surrender completely. He nodded, as if it were an everyday occurrence to have the school falling around their heads, and stepped away from the wall. "If you want to take up my guard position?" he murmured. "I could do something else. Or would you rather check on other students? As you can see, Slytherin House is moving."

Snape took a moment to study him. Draco thought it was out of sheer shock at seeing him so well-organized. And then Snape had relaxed, and if there was a gleam of pride in his eyes, it had not stayed long enough for Draco to identify it.

"Keep where you are, Draco," Snape said steadily. "I have received confirmation that Minerva is dead. As such, I am the Headmaster of Hogwarts now, and I have other duties to attend to."

_Headmaster over a pile of rubble. _This was the end. Draco knew it, and he suspected Snape knew it, too, or would if he let himself have the time needed to think about it.

As matters stood, Draco only nodded and turned his attention to herding the students out.

He wouldn't let himself think about Harry, potentially alone, potentially in danger. He wouldn't.

SSSSSSSSSS

The wild Dark was gone.

Kanerva hovered a mile above the ground, her winds gathered together to form a half-solid body, her head twisting slowly from side to side. As far as she could see, though, the blackness was calm and filled with stars. It didn't at all resemble the dancing, swirling maelstrom that the wild Dark had promised her when it lured her away from the school. It seemed as if her sacrifice of blood or a life wasn't required after all.

_That is disappointing._

And more than disappointing. Now that it appeared she had left her post at Hogwarts for nothing, Kanerva was filled with a bit of remorse. She could have stayed where she was and flown with the tame winds around the wards. It would have granted her as much exercise as the futile retreat into the air had.

But perhaps she could turn around and go back. And if she were very, very good, and flew very, very swiftly, then Harry and Jing-Xi and the others might forget she had ever been gone!

Kanerva turned and hurtled back down towards Hogwarts, through a sky gone entirely too soft and strange to suit her.

SSSSSSSSSSS

She _must_ stand.

Jing-Xi had come to the reluctant conclusion that there was little she could do to help Harry right now. She certainly could not hold back the wild Dark, or call Kanerva to her, and Minerva was beyond her help. But she could exert her utmost to make sure that the school stood long enough for all the innocents to get out.

She closed her eyes and lifted her hands, her hair, her magic. Breezes scented with blossoms stormed past her. She felt the stone around her waver. It wanted to alter, to answer her and change its nature, but the call of the wild Dark and the hammer beating at the bowels of the school increased the siren song of gravity.

Jing-Xi drew on her magic as she had not done in years, at least since the time she made friends with Kanerva and convinced the young Dark Lady to give her a gift instead of trying to kill her. She whirled it around her head and then threw it away from her, drawing even on the magic that permitted her breath to keep flowing through her lungs, her heart to keep beating. If the stones fell in on her, she would not need to breathe and have her heart beat anyway.

She had become a Light Lady because she wished to help people. First, it had been people in her town alone. Then it had included the students of the wizarding school she attended. Then it had been her country. Then she had discovered the machinations of the Pact and how she could best subtly manipulate them. And now it had increased to take into account the students of a school in Britain.

She might burst her heart, with this magic laboring through her and radiating from her fingers and her heart. But at least then she would know that she had died doing something she loved.

The stone around her answered her call at last, and Transfigured to steel. Jing-Xi fell to her knees in the midst of that shining metal, and let out a sharp breath.

She knew she would not have much time. Though the wild Dark appeared to have abandoned the attack for right now, for unknown reasons, it would probably take her use of Light magic as a challenge and return soon enough. She must move and get those who would be hurt out of the way while she still could. Apart from anything else, she knew the students had practiced escape routes, but the wizards and witches who constantly moved in and out of the school had fewer notions of the best way to leave.

She opened the door, and was gone, to see who most needed her help.

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry had never _hurt_ so intensely. His scar burned like acid, and had ever since Voldemort began their deeper battle. His fingers cramped from digging them into his palms. His gut ached from the physical equivalent of swallowing enough magic to choke him.

And then he had felt the pulsing tug in his scar, and seen Voldemort turn, and reacted without thinking, drawing on the magic that flowed in the tunnel between them to make sure he could follow his Apparition. Voldemort's passage had shredded the last of the anti-Apparition wards around the school, and, riding in his shadow, it had been easy enough for Harry to ignore the tatters that grasped at him.

Strangely, given all his pain, he was still able to take in the situation in front of him at a glance.

McGonagall lay on the floor with the Sword of Gryffindor in her heart. Between her and the desk whirled two shades. One, whom Harry had met before and recognized from the color of his beard and robes, was Godric Gryffindor. The other looked like Voldemort, or someone halfway between Voldemort and an older Tom Riddle, with his features already twisted and marked with the stamp of Dark magic. He kept trying to flow past Godric, and the Founder kept stopping him. He was seeking for a body to possess, Harry guessed, and the fact that Godric was like him both foiled him from possessing the Founder and kept him away from solid objects that he might have been able to infect with his presence.

Of course, Voldemort was there now, and starting to turn towards the battle. And the shade of Tom Riddle dived around Godric and made for Harry, seeing him as the best choice for a body.

Harry didn't have time to think, so he acted. He yanked on the magic between himself and Voldemort, viciously, hard enough to make his own eyes water and his teeth feel as if they were being pulled out with pliers. It hurt, but it worked the way he wanted it to, summoning the bird. It hovered above Voldemort, and then, when Harry asked, dove down, swiping open his forehead with one claw and sending blood flowing into his eyes.

Harry didn't know how long the bird would manage to hold Voldemort, but in any case, he would have to hope it would be long enough. He faced Tom Riddle, still reeling a bit from the backlash of the magic tug, and let the momentum invert into an opening of his _absorbere_ gift, locking onto the shard of soul and drinking and draining the magic that kept it alive.

The shade shrieked in horror, and Harry encountered the foulest blockage he'd ever found, like trying to swallow rancid meat and rotten eggs in one go. He didn't let up, though. He'd swallowed a piece of the soul once before, in the Chamber of Secrets, and he would not let the Headmistress's sacrifice on the Sword be for nothing. He gulped, and took the magic inside, and made it a part of himself, even if it did rather sit in the middle of the rest of his magic and jab him with a knife.

The shade let out a horrid howl. Harry could see it struggling to reform, separated from his body by the distance of a few inches. Harry was determined not to let it in. If he did, then the shard of soul would lock him in his mind and manage to force another battle that Harry might not win. Besides, Voldemort could do anything to his body while Harry lay helpless, including kill him.

Harry didn't need a distraction. He had to keep the shade from reaching him at all, had to keep the rest of the battle perfectly poised.

Kanerva bursting through the ceiling of the office to attack Voldemort and his twin coming through the door were exactly the kind of distractions that he didn't need.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Connor came to a stop, gasping, his hand clasped over his forehead. His scar had begun to hurt so furiously that his vision went white with the pain. When he could see again, Parvati was bending over him anxiously, shooing back Padma, who was trying to see.

"Connor?" Parvati whispered. "What is it?"

"Voldemort's in the school," said Connor, and ignored the flinching and moaning that followed his mention of the name. "He's—he's in the Headmistress's office, I think." He wasn't sure how he knew that, but it was like the knowledge he had had of Voldemort's attempts to compel Harry the night he'd flown off the Astronomy Tower; what he knew was more important than the _how_ of knowing it. "I've got to get to the office. I _have_ to." He shook off Parvati's hand and took an unsteady step towards the wall. "Luna, can you ask the rocks to open for me, please?"

"Wait." Parvati caught his arm. "Connor, we need your help to get the little ones outside."

Connor closed his eyes and shook his head. "You'll have to do it without me," he said. "I'm sorry, Parvati. Something's—wrong. I'm not doing this because I think Harry needs me now more than before. It's pulling. In my scar. I think something important is about to happen, and I think I need to be there."

Parvati might have argued with him more, but Luna had already touched the stones in the side of the wall. They parted, at the same moment as they became shining walls of steel. Luna stared at them and smiled. It was the happiest look that Connor had ever seen on her face.

"That's better," she whispered. "They were so afraid of falling."

"Go on, get them out!" Connor snapped to the others, who were staring at him, and they finally obeyed. Perhaps subjecting them to a few orders earlier had been useful, he thought, in the moment before the tug on his scar intensified and he set off at a clumsy run up the hall.

He thought he heard footsteps following him, but he couldn't look back and see who it was. Besides, that might only be the doubled sound of his own blood rushing in his ears, which _was_ awfully loud.

He arrived at the gargoyle finally, which leaped aside when it saw him. Then he was pounding up the moving staircase faster than it could go, and opening the door, and spilling into an office already filled with struggling shapes.

And then things happened as quickly as the down-rush of a dragon.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Indigena spat dirt and looked around surreptitiously. If Sylvan and Oaken saw her angling towards the outside of the school's doors before she could meet Evan and his mysterious other person who would help them with the defeat of the Yaxley twins, she was dead. They would know that her horn hammer was beneath the school, but she wasn't, and they would remember hearing Voldemort order her to that position, and they would become suspicious. Indigena had the excuse that the power of the wild Dark had pressed her away from Hogwarts, even as had happened to them, but Sylvan and Oaken were far too suspicious. They wouldn't accept it.

But then she saw the flash of a familiar dark cloak ahead, and, beneath it, a pair of familiar dark eyes. Evan nodded to her and held up a hand. The next moment, a witch came out of the shaking school and moved towards them.

Indigena lifted an eyebrow when she saw who it was. _Henrietta Bulstrode? Well, of course. I don't know anyone else on the other side of the battle powerful enough and Dark enough to listen to Evan. Or mad enough, come to that. And it would explain his reluctance to tell me who she was._

"Hello, Yaxley," said Henrietta, with a calm smile that made Indigena raise her estimation of the other woman's madness a notch or two. She might have been speaking through calm air instead of air thick with screams and stone dust and magic. "Here to help us destroy your cousins?"

Indigena nodded shortly. "It seems that we are on the same side, for the next little while."

Henrietta shook her head. "We have the same goal," she said. "But you serve your Lord." Her eyes lit up with intensely private amusement, as at some good joke. "And I serve no one."

"What are you doing here?" Sylvan's voice asked then, from behind them.

Indigena turned. She could feel Evan and Henrietta readying their wands. She had no idea if Sylvan had noticed them yet. Or perhaps—probably—he thought that Indigena and Evan had partnered to remove a threat from Harry's side.

No such luck, she saw, when she caught a glimpse of her cousin's face. Still just as suspicious as ever, and he was already drawing his own wand and pulling his cloak in close around his body, to serve as the kind of armor that would turn both spells and werewolf teeth aside.

"Indigena, your vines," said Evan. His casual tone, as if he were commanding a dog, made Indigena bristle, but she did as he had wanted, snapping her fingers and making a coil of green rise from the grass beneath Sylvan's feet. Evan had told her they would take the twins on the grass in front of the castle, so Indigena had made sure to send some of her vines slithering beneath it the moment she landed at the edge of Hogwarts's grounds. The tendrils had halted at the wards, but once the wild Dark had commenced its first attack, they didn't have any trouble slipping in and threading themselves among the more innocent grasses.

Sylvan let the vines grab him, arching one eyebrow. "You will hurt us, Evan? But you know that we cannot be harmed."

Evan gave him a distant, dreamy smile that Indigena had to look away from. "Not by most people, no," he answered. "But by the undoing of the spells that made you invulnerable, you can. And by someone who has spilled as much blood as you have." His voice grew more and more feral. "The Children's Massacre, they called it. My initiation. The endless killing I have done in all the years I have been alive. I think it may yet equal your kills, Yaxleys."

"You cannot know—"

"Henrietta, my dear, sweet love," Evan said. "Begin."

Henrietta had stepped forward when Indigena turned around. She had to admit to watching in some curiosity. She had no clue how Henrietta intended to unwind the spells around the pair. She knew the woman was accomplished with runes and Transfiguration, but it was not as if she had the ability that Draco did, to possess her opponents.

Apparently, Henrietta had a certain amount of confidence in her abilities. "I have been reading a book called _The Changes of the Mind_," she said, in a chirpy voice that also made Indigena shudder. _She and Evan are well made for each other. _"It covers mental Transfiguration. I believe that changing the patterns in my brain so that they correspond to the patterns in yours should be simple enough. I have studied it."

Indigena stared, her heart pounding. _If that happens, she will change her mind to fit theirs, and she will think as they do, and she will want them to survive—has Evan baited this as a trap?_

A swift glance at Evan did not reassure her. His mouth was slightly parted, just a bit open, and he looked as if he were ready to die of enjoyment. His eyes shone like dark moons.

Henrietta intoned an incantation Indigena didn't know. She readied her vines to grab Henrietta, just in case they did have a suddenly insane third killer on their hands.

Her face changed, but she laughed, and she still sounded like herself when she said, "Oh. I see. Absurdly simple. It is really the unwilling sacrifices that give the power. The incantations themselves are easy, and easy to work backwards as well." She nodded to Evan, and held out her arm. "Come here, and I will whisper them in your ear."

Evan went solemnly over and leaned near her. Indigena could see his body trembling beneath his tattered robes. She wasn't entirely sure if it was with lust or not. She _was_ sure that she did not want to know what it was.

Henrietta whispered words into his ear, and Evan turned towards Sylvan. Her cousin was struggling in earnest now, Indigena noted. Not that it would do much good. They were immune to _threats_, but the vines holding them were not threats, any more than ropes or chains in and of themselves were. Nor were the incantations that Evan was now intoning really meant to do harm.

By themselves.

Indigena watched as black coil after coil fell from her cousins. Oaken replaced Sylvan, and the other way around, several times, but they didn't seem able to break free of the trap. That was only fitting. Indigena thought it right, even just, that her cousins should be destroyed by two people as mad as they were.

Because there was no doubt that Henrietta Bulstrode was mad. She let Evan Rosier close enough to her to bite her throat out, and she tilted her head back and smiled at him in between whispers. Her dark eyes were bright with pleasure and power, her long brown curls hanging disheveled over her shoulders, and she might as well have finished fucking him a moment ago. And Evan kept shooting her glances that Indigena had never seen him bestow on another living thing.

_Of course, that probably only means that he'll linger over her and make his torture of her a moment to remember._

Via magic that Indigena did not want to understand, sourced in a communion between two debased souls that she could not stand to comprehend, the spells flowed backward, as Sylvan and Oaken had described happening to their Lord the day they were caught by Draco Malfoy and his possession gift. Sylvan screamed and threatened and spoke of their Lord and, near the end, even pleaded. Oaken was silent all the way through, but his bronze eyes burned as he watched them.

And then the last spell came off, and Evan stepped forward, bent his head, adjusted his position a bit to get around Indigena's vines, and ripped Sylvan's throat out.

The pleading ended in a sudden spray of blood. Some of it coated her darlings, and Indigena wrinkled her nose at the feel of the liquid, which was nothing like as nourishing as water. She swiped at her face, even though none of the blood was on her skin, and caught one glimpse of Evan, laughing, red-mouthed, eyes dark as blueberries, before she let the vines go and turned away.

Her plants followed her. She would go down into the dungeons of Hogwarts, to be with her horn hammer, and be standing there, innocent as always, when her Lord came looking for her. Indigena wanted nothing more to do with either Evan or Henrietta Bulstrode.

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry saw his brother from the corner of his eye. He saw the diving Kanerva from the corner of his other eye, and the bird swooping out of her way. He saw, mainly, the shade of Tom Riddle suddenly darting away from him, towards Connor, as if it knew how much easier possessing his brother would be.

The shade shot over to him, and then came to a stop. Searing white light shone from Connor's body, staring in the middle of his heart-shaped scar and spreading outward. It appeared to aim itself in an arrowpoint straight at the shard of Voldemort's soul, which cowered back with its hand over its face.

Harry didn't know what had stopped it this time—maybe just his intense love for his brother—and he wasn't about to care. He snapped his hand out, and made a final effort, this time sustained by all his conscious love for Connor, to draw the soul into him and destroy it.

It stuck in his throat and hurt horribly going down, but he did it. Harry felt the final threads of magic supporting the shard of the soul tear apart. He heard Voldemort's frustrated shriek from across the room, and saw Connor lower his hand, blinking, examining his own skin cautiously, as if he couldn't believe that he had managed to defeat something like a piece of Voldemort. Then his eyes came back to Harry's, and there was understanding and gratitude in them.

And then two other people pressed around Connor and into the room. One was Luna, her eyes wide as she gazed at the Headmistress's body and the drained Sword on the floor. Harry wasn't sure that she saw McGonagall at all, next to the blade.

"It's gone," she whispered. "I knew that it would be, but I wanted to see it for myself."

The second figure was Michael Rosier-Henlin. He didn't hesitate, stop, or look around. He threw himself past Harry, and straight at Voldemort, shouting something half-strangled. Harry could make out only Medusa's name, and Eos's.

Voldemort slapped past Kanerva with two reaching tendrils of power. The first one had to go sideways, to reach Michael, and missed its mark, Harry thought. It caught him a slap across the face and tumbled him sideways, smashing his head into the desk and knocking him unconscious. He would probably have a burn on his cheek, a nasty one, but he still breathed.

The second tendril went past Harry, and he ducked instinctively, and then he was looking at Michael. Then he turned, and saw what it had done.

Luna lay against the open door, her neck broken, her eyes wide and staring.

Harry tried to speak, to think, to do something. But he could not. Luna's death was not something he had ever thought to be _asked_ to act on or comprehend.

A wind began to boil in the room, and Kanerva's voice whispered, "Dark Lord. Shall we dance?"

Voldemort snarled in rage, and Harry knew they could not stay. Kanerva was stronger than he was, and she appeared to be fully committed to the battle with Voldemort, given that _she_ had attacked _him_. The wild Dark must not have held her interest sufficiently.

Harry was still not strong enough to face Voldemort, even with all the magic he had swallowed, and he knew the man could not be killed without destroying the other two Horcruxes, and he had the living to care for.

He sent his own magic out in two tendrils, one to pick up the unconscious Michael, one to snatch Connor, and then he was out of the room and bounding down the moving staircase. Connor, floating behind him, protested vociferously over not being allowed to walk.

The sight of dead and staring eyes pursued Harry all the way.

SSSSSSSSSSS

He was furious.

He had never been furious before. He understood that now. Those little rages had all been practices for the real thing, and this was the real thing, this black ice that slaked his veins with a surplus of fury and then broke over him like a red sun.

And the Dark Lady in front of him dared to taunt him, dared to hinder him from going after his enemy.

A moment later, though, the Lord Voldemort gained control of himself. He had come here to retrieve his Horcrux, to taunt Harry, and to drain magic. The first goal was impossible now, the second he had succeeded in, and he could still accomplish the last.

And he would tear Hogwarts stone from stone while he was at it, to make a fitting cairn for the shard of his soul that had perished here.

He grabbed the Dark Lady.

She was wild. She was mad. She had given herself over to the wild Dark on the condition that it would destroy her. It was the kind of thinking that in other circumstances, had he not been so much Death's enemy, the Lord Voldemort would have admired.

But she was no match for him, the most powerful wizard who had ever lived, and with the ability to drain her of her magic. He drank her, and her winds grew slower and slower, and her body came back into sight, and then he took her head in his hands and _twisted._

And still he could not be rid of it, that high jackal's laughter in his ears.

SSSSSSSSSSS

Harry was not sure how they had reached the outside of the school. He remembered Apparating, and then he remembered going back because Connor had explained that some Gryffindors and Ravenclaws were still making their way out of the school, and he had caught a glimpse of Snape in there, and he had seen Jing-Xi, and he had helped to stabilize falling stones and crumpling steel, and then he had felt Voldemort's magic falling on them like a block itself and knew they dared stay no longer.

They stood now near the far opening of the tunnel that lay under the school, helping spilling students out of the hole: Gryffindors, Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs guided by Helga's spirit, Draco and the Slytherins. Draco took his hand in a grip that still stung and hurt now, five minutes later. Harry could hear Connor's voice speaking to Padma, and the beginning of her tears, and he could see wounds scattered on bodies everywhere, and dust.

And not everyone who had stayed at the school over the winter holidays had come out again.

Harry raised his head. He could see the black flag of Voldemort's power rising to the south and east. He knew that, in his frustration, the Dark Lord would probably take the school apart. He knew that Kanerva was dead, and anyone who remained there. He wanted to collapse, and he wanted to grieve.

But, first, he had to make sure he got the children with him to safety, in case Voldemort finished his tantrum sooner than Harry thought he would and came after them.

He turned away.

There was a snarl, and the wild Dark came down on him.


	68. The Beast in the Wilderness

I suppose, technically, the ending of this could be counted as a cliffhanger, as the action ends but the immediate situation does not resolve, so, fair warning.

**Chapter Fifty-Four: The Beast in the Wilderness**

Harry saw the manticore swoop towards him, its darkness beating around it like wings, its mouth wide open. It might suck his soul out of his body, for all he knew, like a Dementor. He did know that it wanted him, and if he stood there and gave in, out of weariness or fear or simple and sheer disgust with everything that had happened, it would have him.

So he remembered the plan he'd crafted for dealing with the wild Dark—he'd made it up a hundred years ago—and lifted his voice.

The darkness around him splintered at the sound of the phoenix song. The manticore stopped moving, and stood still, just as it had hovered in front of him on those nights when Harry sang from the top of the Astronomy Tower.

The Astronomy Tower that was now so much shattered rubble among the remains of the castle—

Harry shoved the thought impatiently away. _Oh, yes, mourning for the castle will help me now. Except that it will not, and I must learn to distinguish between what will and what won't._

He warbled, feathering and softening his voice, and let the blue flame race up and down his arms. It was hardly difficult, in the wake of everything he felt over the collapse of Hogwarts. He might dwell in righteous anger for the rest of his life and never have enough of it.

The manticore dropped to the ground and began to pace around him, eyes wide and intent and very green. Harry watched the scorpion tail sway above its back, and could guess what would happen to someone who got too close, the way that Draco seemed intent on doing now.

On the other hand, he didn't have the breath to spare from the song to shout a warning. So he trusted to Draco's good sense, just as he had to keep him inside the castle and away from the battle, and moved backward, step by step, listening to his feet crunching on the snow, the intense, hearing silence around him, and the cadence and lift and dash of his voice.

The wild Dark followed. It had started an almost imperceptible purring. Harry could feel the sound vibrating in his bones better than he could hear it. The scorpion tail still danced back and forth, and the wide eyes now seemed drugged. Harry knew the wild Dark would react fast enough if he stopped singing, though.

He dropped to one knee, briefly, as though searching for something in the snow. Then he stood and waved his arms about, timing the gestures to the song. The manticore followed the motions with its eyes, and a whine arrived to add to the purr. It didn't understand him, and it wanted to understand, Harry knew. He belonged to it, as far as it was concerned. It would want all his secrets, his ways of thinking about things, his powers, his spirit.

Harry knew Voldemort had managed to charm it with a soul-pattern, which he didn't have time to draw. He would just have to entice it with something else.

And above all else, the wild Dark desired the Light. Harry's arms imitated the motions of phoenix wings.

He felt the moment the manticore realized that. The purr escaped its lips this time, and it padded forward again, lion paws large and light, dangerous gaze never wavering from him.

Step by step, Harry led it back towards the Forbidden Forest, away from the people gathered on the hole outside the tunnel from Hogwarts, and he hoped to Merlin that they would have the good sense to get away while he bought them time.

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

As he rose above the rubble that had been the home of his enemies, the Lord Voldemort noted that he rose into silence.

It was—strange. He had expected noise, his magic imploding on itself, his own furious cries, and the sound of the roused storm as the wild Dark fed on Harry's soul. But what he got was the eye of the storm. The Lord Voldemort stopped rising and hovered, borne on a current of magic as birds flew on wind. He had the time to pause and figure out what had happened. It was not as though Harry and his fellow children could flee far or fast.

The silence coalesced into a ripple in front of him, rotating like the edge of a hurricane, and then the wild Dark was there. The Lord Voldemort would have known that power anywhere, though it currently did not have the manticore form it usually bore this year. It had the form of a white snake, a dragon without legs, wreathed back on itself and watching him with cold blue eyes.

The Lord Voldemort could only imagine that it had come to make common cause with him in hunting Harry, which was not that surprising. He had promised himself his heir's magic, but the wild Dark would have the soul. He nodded, and extended his arm and his magic, which trailed it like a heavy sleeve, to point beyond Hogwarts.

"Their trail begins there," he said. He spoke aloud, but the wild Dark would hear the intentions and the connotations behind his words, which were the most important parts.

The snake turned towards him and showed its fangs. The Lord Voldemort faltered, his eyes narrowing. _Something is wrong._

The serpent spoke in Parseltongue, and its voice shook his spine. "_I made a promise to one of my servants. I did not keep that promise. You killed her, and that is not the death she chose. For killing her, you shall pay._"

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry had pulled the wild Dark into the edge of the Forbidden Forest, so that the trees whispered and creaked around them, the bare black branches scraping the back of his neck when he stood up from his half-crouched position. His arms ached, and he knew he couldn't flap them much longer. He still held the manticore's eyes, and he still sang, but now he had to try a new tactic.

He stooped down, therefore, and sat in the snow. The blue flame that shone around him sparked and began to melt it. But the drops of running water smelled sweet, like myrrh, and the water itself made Harry feel as if he stood in a shower in the loo off his and Draco's bedroom.

_As you never will again._

Harry told his mind to shut up. It was inconvenient, truly, the way it insisted on making him think in a human fashion even when he was trying to do other things. He leaned his head on his right hand and flexed the fingers, enjoying the way they bent now with the last of the Horcrux taint gone. He turned his thoughts to water and floated the physical sensations in it like the ingredients of a soup, making sure the wild Dark could see how good it felt to sing the phoenix song and how much more aware he was while the music and the fire flooded his body.

The manticore crept a few steps nearer still. Now the lion's chest loomed over him, with the scorpion tail lashing and rippling just behind it, and the great human face stared and stared.

Harry smiled at it, and the manticore gave a little stamp of its left hind paw. Harry knew it was from delight.

The wild Dark knew what he had suffered with the fall of Hogwarts. If it could read his emotions, then it could sense grief and guilt, and it had been a large part of causing that grief and guilt. But Harry could still smile at it, and he could still lie about in front of the wild Dark and sing this way. The wild Dark wanted a soul so resilient and stubborn for itself.

Harry let more thoughts flow into his mind. Ordinarily, he could not have done this. It was the phoenix song which made him able to bear the bleaker emotions for now. The Light in him, that shard of pure Light he had not asked for from Fawkes's death but which had come to him in any case and which it would be stupid not to use, carried him through the Midwinters of his life.

The manticore came close enough that Harry could feel the warmth of the drool dripping from its jaws. Its breath smelled like wormy meat, soft with heat and corruption.

Harry tilted his head back encouragingly. He lay completely supine in the snow in front of the manticore now. To a stranger, he might look submissive, offering his throat to be torn by those mighty jaws.

He had another plan in mind, and as long as no one interfered, tried to rescue him or be a hero, then he thought he would succeed.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

The snake curled around him. The Lord Voldemort held still, and hovered on his current of magic, because he could not believe that this had happened to him. He and the wild Dark were partners in the destruction of Harry. He was to have the magic, and the wild Dark was to have the soul. It had never shown any sign of being less than fascinated once he began to create the pattern of flesh and blood. Should it not be a distance away, taking the soul from Harry's body and leaving the corpse for the Lord Voldemort to reclaim and his friends for him to torture?

But the white serpent wound about him, and then fastened its cold blue fangs in his neck, and the Lord Voldemort came to understand something he had forgotten: the wild Dark did not answer to human standards. It might be miles away reaping Harry just as it floated here with him. And it might agree to a bargain it would hold until Midwinter night and then break its own rules.

He had understood that. He had been sure he understood that.

And then he realized that he had fallen into the common, petty human trap of assuming superior comprehension when, in truth, he had tricked himself into shutting and locking the cage door behind him.

He cried out, but the wild Dark did not care. He struck with his newly-powerful magic, but the wild Dark did not notice. He called for his Death Eaters, for Indigena, burning his power through the Dark Mark, and the jackal laughter of Death entered his ears.

The Lord Voldemort made himself be still. He knew the wild Dark could not kill him. The laws of Horcruxes were absolute. The Unassailable Curses he had laid demanded willing sacrifices, and the wild Dark did not make sacrifices, it took them. He was safe. It might badly damage him, but he would survive, and survival was his ultimate goal.

_I have you, _the wild Dark whispered, and then they rolled, and the grip of the night around him was tight and silent, and the Lord Voldemort learned again what it was like to be small before a stronger force.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry watched the maw of the manticore descend nearer and nearer his face, and sang with all his might.

Fawkes had sung like this last year, when he danced among the clouds of the Midwinter night and yielded his life. He had given visions to Harry as he died, visions of sunlight and moonlight and starlight that graced creatures who were _meant_ to live in them. And he had given Harry his voice as if he had planned the gift all along, though Harry doubted it was so.

The gift had come to him, lightly, and Harry had used it as lightly as he could. He could offer hope, but he would not compel with it, nor change minds. Relieve despair, remind people of his existence and the existence of others, but not use it to sir the world like a glass rod in a potion.

Given that, how lightly it had come to him, how should he cling to it, how become jealous and possessive of it? Fawkes had been anything but jealous and possessive. His occasional sparring with Hedwig and Argutus had come more from shared physical space than jealousy.

The thoughts raced through Harry's head, faster and faster, as the teeth halted a few inches above his face. His bones vibrated with the force of his voice and the manticore's purr. He put up a hand, greatly daring, and felt the smooth, short fur under his palm. The wild Dark slowly tilted its head, poison-green eyes telling him not to grow too comfortable with this.

Harry would not call his state of mind _comfortable._ He hung between extremes, and all around him exultation and despair, Dark and Light, raced like comets. He knew he might die in a moment, but, with the part of him that welcomed death for comfort and for his crimes, he felt more excited about the prospect than anything else. The air between him and the wild Dark pulsed with familiarity.

Few wizards and witches attained this power. Those who did, Declared, and after that they were close to one or the other, Dark or Light, but never both again. Harry had ridden the Light when it went to take back stolen magic from Voldemort, and now he lay on his back beneath the teeth of a beast that could rip his throat out and felt exactly the same wonder and awe he had felt then.

The wild Dark turned its head further to the side and laid its cheek along his. A shock of warmth traveled into Harry, and from it the wild Dark's intense pleasure and appreciation. It _wanted_ him, all the more for the strange thoughts flowing through his mind. If it wanted someone who thought ordinary things, it could have found such a person and stolen his soul at any time. But this was different. Its purring said so. The heavy paw it lifted and laid across Harry's chest, the claws that could disembowel him poking lightly at his skin, said so.

Harry knew, somewhere in the depths of his brain, that his plan had turned somewhat wrong. He had intended to touch the wild Dark's inherent fascination with the Light, and make it focus on his phoenix voice. Instead, it seemed he had increased its fascination with his soul.

But in that moment, as he stared into eyes so large that he could only focus on one of them at a time when they were this close, he found that he didn't care.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

The Lord Voldemort saw curves of darkness surrounding a globe so small that it seemed lost in all that immensity. He could reach out and crush it in his hand. And he did try, but the white serpent kept his hand bound to his side.

"_You are unchangeable._"

The Lord Voldemort did not understand that. He did not understand what he had been brought here to see. Though the realization of smallness had impacted him greatly at first, like the destruction of a Horcrux, it had faded. The wild Dark could not bring back the dead, and it had made no movement to take the Dark Lady's magic from him. Therefore, it would do something chaotic and wild to suit its nature, and then it would release him, and he could begin the hunt for Harry and the children and traitors who had accompanied him.

A cold sigh traveled past his ear, and then the darkness parted, opening like a series of shrouds releasing their victims, wing after wing whispering away. The Lord Voldemort could see the earth floating now in the unclouded light of stars and suns, sparking a few random gleams from its seas or high mountains covered with snow. His longing to reach out and crush it in one hand increased. If only he could do so, if only he did not have to spend so much of his time battling prophecies and his heir and those other things that did not know their rightful Lord and their rightful place.

"_So small is the earth,_" the white serpent hissed into his ear. "_And so mighty am I that I dwarf it, and so does the Light. When I make a promise to a follower, then I always keep that promise._"

The Lord Voldemort said nothing. He felt, in fact, a boredom much like the emotion he had felt when a child in Hogwarts or the orphanage, when adults scolded him with tears in their eyes or frowns on their faces. They wanted him to act like a good boy, like a good child, to stop behaving as if he did not know the difference between right and wrong. They had never listened to his ambitions, never realized that he had the right to power and wisdom beyond his years by virtue of that power. The wild Dark would scold him, as they had, and that would be the end of it.

There was a long pause. The wild Dark had sensed his thoughts. The Lord Voldemort hoped to be set back on his feet. This was only another one of the many repeated episodes that had once characterized his life. He was eager to be on to something new, to kill the only one who could kill him, according to the prophecy and their connection, and then to smell the rest of the world's fear. He could not imagine how mighty he would be when he had absorbed Harry's magic back into himself and no longer had a constant drain on his power. Would the Lords and Ladies of the Pact cower before him, or would they put up a pathetic fight before he crushed them and extended his shadow over the wizards and the Muggle world alike? How long would the purges of Mudbloods take? How many generations until everyone could chant the genealogy of Slytherin's heir, and treated the name of Harry Potter, Harry Black, the _vates,_ as a traitor's too horrible to think on?

And then the wild Dark said, "_By the patterns of Light and Dark, my great kin and I exert our influence on the world at destined times. And I say now that you, who call yourself my servant, shall not again use your power in open battle until the spring equinox and the coming of the Light."_

SSSSSSSSSSS

The first drop of drool splashed into Harry's eyes. He blinked. He hadn't realized the moment his view changed from that of large green eyes to fang. He reached up and ran his right hand along the edge of the nearest tooth. It nearly removed his last two fingers. In a distant, drowsy way, he approved.

Also, in a distant, drowsy way, he realized that his throat hurt from singing the phoenix song, but he didn't think he had much choice but to continue. He sat up a little more and shook his head, still ducking beneath the manticore's chin, and turned the current of the music. In the back of his mind thrummed the thought that his and the wild Dark's mutual fascination had lasted long enough, and now he needed to get on with things.

He sang of the way that his voice had attracted the attention of Acies in her dragon form, and tried to put the flight of Dark creatures into the voice of a creature of the Light. He wasn't sure he succeeded, but the wild Dark whuffed an appreciation of his efforts and moved closer. It was nearly part of him now, standing in his shadow, his boundaries and its flowing and mingling. Harry could feel abysses too great for him to endure hovering just beyond his sight or comprehension. He leaned closer to them. Why not? He had succeeded in passing beyond the moment when he might have rejected the wild Dark and turned on it because of what it had done to his home. Now, he needed to feel that he stood above a drop in order to make him keep his mind on the task. The wild Dark simply didn't seem as awful as it had.

It could offer him that oblivion he had dreamed of, the perfect black nothingness and rest he had once thought he would attain with suicide.

The wild Dark took a step closer, purring once more.

It could make the world around him so simple. With him dead, his soul utterly absorbed, he wouldn't care about anything any more, not have to deal with decisions and difficulties and whether he had done something wrong according to his standards or others'.

The wild Dark's breath came from his own mouth, its madness and its thoughts passed behind his own eyes.

And that was the promise, or part of the promise, it had made to Kanerva, and it had ended up not granting her that promise.

The wild Dark flinched back with a sharp cry, and they hung between extremes in a moment when it might have shredded Harry apart for reminding it of its failures.

Harry filled his voice with the challenge, the challenge that the Light always offered to the Dark, and waited.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

The Lord Voldemort felt boredom travel through him and then ebb like a cold wave. That left what the wild Dark had said. He could not use his power until the spring equinox, while darkness dominated the world.

He simply rejected the notion, impatient and incredulous at the thought of any such holds on his power. He was the strongest wizard in the world! The Lords and Ladies of the Pact themselves could not stand against him! Muggle weapons would fall apart if he so much as looked at them! And the Dark thought it could restrict what he tried to do? It was nonsense.

The Dark sighed as if to itself, and the white serpent hissed through the place in his shoulder where the icicle fangs still gripped. "_Why must I be so badly served?" _it asked in Parseltongue. "_Why must those Lords who have arisen in Britain give not their whole hearts to me, as they do in other countries, but attempt to hold back, cheat, and pay more attention to mortal politics than to me?"_

The Lord Voldemort did not know what it meant. What _he_ meant was that he would continue to use his power up until the spring equinox, not simply past it.

The Dark's voice had gone amused, now; the Lord Voldemort would have recognized that particular twist of the hiss in Parseltongue anywhere, since he had often used the language to laugh at his enemies. "_It is not your choice. When you made the Declaration to me, when you promised not to serve the Light or use Light spells without some measure of subterfuge involved, you gave me power over you. I have not chosen to exert that power. I have liked watching your wildness. What harm you brought to others was aimed at Light wizards, and when I am rational, I admire it. When I am angry at you, I seek to stretch the wildness further._

"_But now you have killed another servant of mine, who was also wild, and with whom I was not yet finished. I can and I will restrict your power. Until the Light returns to save you, you will not use your power against Harry directly. Magic sustains you, but you cannot use it in battle." _The wild Dark paused as if in contemplation. "_And you cannot drain._"

And then the image of the earth faded, and the white serpent, and the cold poison in his veins, and the Lord Voldemort stood among the rubble of the castle with the hour of greatest darkness passed. He at once gathered his magic to spring into the air as if he had wings and fly after Harry.

Nothing happened.

He conjured an intricate, glowing sphere on his palm, and it appeared. He channeled power to the new eyes he had created, and they responded, sharpening and brightening his vision. He reached out to drain the magic of the artifacts lingering in the bowels of the castle, and nothing happened.

It took him long moments to connect his own powerlessness with what the wild Dark had said about the magic it would hold back from him.

A frustrated scream rose from his throat and ripped through the night.

SSSSSSSSSSS

Harry knelt there, singing, his eyes shut, his blue fire melting the snow around him, and listened to the wild Dark pace and mutter, pace and snarl under its breath, pace and think.

It leaned close to his ear and snarled straight at him at one point.

Harry ignored it as serenely as he could. He had done what he wanted—he hoped. He had turned the wild Dark's attention away from his soul by showing it he would not make an ideal possession after all. His soul resembled Kanerva's soul, but the wild Dark had not kept its promise to her. How could Harry trust it to keep its promises to him, any promise that it might make? He would not Declare, he would not yield gracefully, because he would not get enough out of doing so.

So he sang the song of Light, and listened to the wild Dark try to find some way to refute his dilemma. Or he waited for the moment when it would decide that its rules could bind it no longer and change its mind.

_Whatever comes first._

At last, the manticore's pacing slowed, and Harry opened his eyes to see it standing in front of him, scorpion tail slung jauntily over its back. It could not oppose what he had thought. No, it had not served Kanerva well. And while it could punish Voldemort, that would not turn time around or bring her back to life, which were the only second chances it could have had. But it still wished Harry would reconsider. He had fascinated it. It wanted something from him.

Harry cocked his eyebrow. He had sensed the words as if someone were speaking to him in a conversation, but they did not come to him in words; they simply awakened in his head and were there as if he had known them all before he developed his first conscious thought, rather like the colors he saw.

He knew he should not draw this out much longer. The wild Dark could lose interest at any moment, or decide to break its rules, or rule that its punishment of Voldemort was enough to pay for Kanerva's death and take his soul anyway. The wild Dark kept its bargains unless it had a better idea. Harry didn't want to give it the moments to have that better idea.

He cocked his head to the side and let his song whisper into silence. The blue fire faded, and Harry became aware that he was, in fact, shivering rather violently and that his throat hurt as if he had swallowed snow and run a mile in cold air. The wild Dark gave a low whine of distress.

Harry touched his throat and raised his eyebrows. He could not speak, but the wild Dark would read his meaning well enough.

The manticore whined again, and then came nearer, paws so light on the snow that its claws didn't seem to disturb a particle from its place. Its major emotion now was wonder, Harry thought. He would give it the phoenix voice? It could really take that song from him, and he wouldn't miss it?

Well, of course Harry would _miss_ it. But it made a better fit for the wild Dark than his soul did, and as it had said, it was not letting him go without some kind of a sacrifice from him, a gift.

He locked his eyes with the calm green ones and waited.

The manticore bowed its head and licked its tongue over his throat. Harry felt the phoenix song scraped out of him, like remnants of cheese removed from a grater, and bowed his head. No, he had not wanted to lose the last gift Fawkes had ever given him, but far better that than his life or his soul and all the lives within Hogwarts.

Now, of course, it remained to be seen whether the wild Dark would take that and go away, or whether it would change its mind and snatch his soul after all. Harry had struggled so hard, had thrown so much of his will into the song, that he found himself peaceful and drained and not caring what happened. Either way, he had fought the best fight he knew how.

The wild Dark's scorpion sting slid over his cheek. Harry opened his eyes to see the manticore staring at him.

They had shared something wonderful and endless a few moments ago, and the wild Dark would not forget that.

It turned away from him and sprang upward, becoming part of the night again. A moment later, Harry felt the storm, the same power that had helped to destroy Hogwarts and its wards, begin to pass away. To the north, too, the sky was clear. Harry didn't think Voldemort would come after them this night.

He climbed to his feet and walked back through the trees towards Draco and Snape and Connor and the others. He did not think of the fact that he had bargained with the monster who had helped to kill so many, or of the work that awaited him when he rejoined them, work only he could do. He thought of nothing at all.


	69. The Concussive Dance

**Chapter Fifty-Five: The Concussive Dance**

Snape exhaled in relief when he saw Harry coming back to them from the edge of the Forest. He would have moved the students who stood around the tunnel to one of the safehouses—preferably one of the Black houses—sooner or later, but Harry's presence was the only magic that might be able to protect them from the wild Dark and Voldemort on the way.

Although, if the scream and the clearing sky from the north were any indication, the Dark Lord would not be coming after them for some time.

Snape shook his head. He was not used to feeling such a heavy weight of responsibility. He would bear it for Harry, but knowing that Minerva had died and left him Headmaster of the school, responsible for these children's safety—

_What was she thinking? There will be many parents who won't trust me with the safety of their children. She should have chosen Peter, Pomona, Filius, anyone but me. _Snape closed one hand into a fist. _I don't know how to do this. And I'm depending on my adopted son to lead us. Surely that's the most pathetic sign of all._

Harry came to a halt in front of him, and Snape found that his voice had stuck in his throat. They hadn't seen much of what happened in the clearing in the woods; Harry's phoenix voice and the power of the wild Dark had woven a mingled barrier of night and flame to keep them back. But Harry's eyes were dead, not merely blank but empty, and he touched his throat and shook his head when Snape looked at him expectantly. Apparently, he'd sung out the phoenix voice and, with it, the voice that would let him talk.

Letters of fire sprouted from his fingers to hang in the air and make up for that a moment later, though. They didn't waver even as Draco moved forward and hugged Harry firmly enough to almost knock him off his feet. Harry just shifted to one side as if to compensate for the hug, and more letters spilled out of him to join the first line.

_We should bring the children to Silver-Mirror. That will be our new central headquarters. The wild Dark no longer wants my soul, and won't pursue us. And Voldemort screamed as if something had stopped him. I don't know what it was. Perhaps wounds taken in the battle with Kanerva. Either way, we must move, and Silver-Mirror is the destination that makes sense, the one with the strongest wards and the one that will serve as a good central location to gather the others around us._

Snape nodded unwillingly. Silver-Mirror was at least closer to most of their allies' homes than the far-flung Cobley-by-the-Sea, and though they could have gone to Grimmauld Place, trying to herd a group of tired and crying children through Muggle London was not a challenge Snape would have looked forward to. "And what shall we do once we arrive at Silver-Mirror?"

Harry grunted and shifted to the side again as Draco's embrace grew firmer. It seemed that Draco wanted him to look at him, but Harry refused, keeping his eyes steadily on Snape. _For the night? Bed down the children. Heal the wounded. In the morning, try to figure out who survived, and send messengers to contact the parents and explain the situation. Start rebuilding a government from the ashes of the Ministry and the ruins of Hogwarts._

Snape frowned slightly. He had the feeling that something was wrong. He caught Harry's eye, but could see no sign of Occlumency suppression there. Harry simply appeared calm and thoughtful, putting aside his emotions for the greater good of the people he had to save. Snape told himself not to worry so much. Harry had always been good at doing what had to be done.

Later, if necessary, he would talk to his son and find out whether he blamed himself for the dead of Hogwarts. For now, they both had to deal with the living of Hogwarts.

He turned away and studied the circle of tear-streaked faces that lifted to look at him. "We will be Apparating to a house where you will be safe," he said loudly. "Those who can Apparate, please hold the hands of those who cannot, and begin transporting them." He nodded to Regulus. "Go before them and lower the wards—"

"Of course," Regulus murmured, and vanished.

_I'll stay here to guard them, if you want to go ahead, _Harry signed.

Snape nodded, but said, "I can't go ahead. Not yet." He turned his head back towards the school. "If there are others there, children who need my help or might be lying trapped in the ruins—"

Harry's eyes turned bleak, and he nodded in turn. But he extended a cocoon of protection over the children around him instead of accompanying Snape to the school. Perhaps he understood that Snape would call for him if he needed his magic, to shift stones or heal someone who would die without his help.

Perhaps he simply knew his own limits, and knew that, while Snape needed to look at the shattered wreckage of the building that had been his home for decades, Harry himself could not yet bear it.

Snape closed his eyes and pictured the end of the Hogsmeade road. He'd appeared there before he realized he could have Apparated closer to the school. The wards that prevented Apparition were gone, after all.

No sense in protecting a ruin.

He walked forward, staring. The school had fallen in upon itself, with stone folding on stone, and the Towers curling inward like the petals of a flower touched by frost. Snape tried to make out what had been the roof of the Great Hall, what had been the entrance doors, where the Headmistress's office would have been. Nothing, and nothing, and nothing. The school looked like what it was, rubble, already touched with a light drifting of snow.

Snape closed his eyes.

He wanted to rage. Minerva had made the wrong choice. She'd done what she could to insure the children would be safe after her death, yes, but she could never have anticipated something like this. He was the wrong man to do this.

But she had consigned authority to him, and that meant he would have to bear it. And if Harry could do it, he could.

Still—

The nearest thing he'd had to a home in his childhood, and the building he'd worked in and loved and hated for so long as an adult. Gone.

Snape forced himself to open his eyes, to see what was there instead of the memories that wanted to intrude, and walked closer to the pile in the dark and the cold, absently casting Warming Charms on himself as he moved. He needed to search for survivors.

_As if anyone could have survived that—_

But someone might have.

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

Henrietta found her way to Silver-Mirror after a few false starts, having checked Grimmauld Place and then Cobley-by-the-Sea first. It made sense that Harry would have chosen one of the Black houses as his new stronghold. It was his name now, after all, and the wards recognized and responded only to him and Regulus. And Silver-Mirror did have formidable weapons should an enemy come. Henrietta approved.

Regulus recognized her touch on the wards and let her in. Henrietta smiled at him, and then said, "What do you need help with?"

The Black studied her for a moment. Henrietta studied him calmly back. She knew Regulus had never trusted her, since he'd been there when she made her first, rather unfortunate, attempts to take power from Harry, but he had to know that she would be a familiar face to many of the students, as their Transfiguration Professor. And, a moment later, he nodded and gestured her to one of the side rooms, which looked like a library.

"There are some children we can't get to calm down in there," he said. "Could you tend to them?"

"Of course," Henrietta murmured, and glided away, into the room full of terrified second-years. She'd repaired her glamour the moment she parted from Evan, and now she looked like Professor Belluspersona again, a hard teacher, but known for being calm and kind outside the classroom.

A little girl in a Ravenclaw crest recognized her first, and broke and ran to her, sobbing. She babbled out some tale of watching a friend die in the fall of stones. Henrietta knelt down, put an arm around her, and stroked her hair. Such gestures had never been natural to her, but she had learned them as part of the dance she was to play in Harry's entourage. Besides, she had abused only her own daughter in the quest for power. These children were reflections of Harry to her. If Harry cared about their lives and did not want them hurt, then she would protect them.

The rest of the children surrounded her, crying and uttering pleas for reassurance and asking what had happened. Henrietta began to cast a great many surreptitious Cleaning Charms and dry a great many tears. She knew she would have a long night ahead of her. She didn't mind. Such service had become natural to her since she swore the Unbreakable Vows. The good of Harry and his cause was more important to her even than her own allegiance to the Dark.

The Ravenclaw second-year who stood closest to her blinked and looked up, touching her face in wonder. "Did a stone hurt you, Professor?" she whispered.

"I can't really remember," said Henrietta, licking the blood from her lips. These children were not to know the truth. They knew nothing of falling on Evan Rosier in the snow, and kissing him hard enough to make him bite his lower lip, and looking into his dark eyes, and seeing, at the bottom of all the madness and the laughter, the terror. He still remembered the pain of his violation. Henrietta was the only one who could make him fear like that.

But those were not tales for children.

"I think a rock hit you," the second-year whispered.

Henrietta kissed her hair, and looked calmly at the smear of red on the blonde curls. "Maybe it did," she said.

SSSSSSSSS

Monika stepped back from the pool with a thoughtful look on her face.

Well. Wasn't _that_ interesting.

She hadn't thought Lord Riddle would bring down Hogwarts, she had to admit, at least not without more of a fight from Harry. She had thought he had some attachment to the place, enough to want to dominate it. He'd take it for a headquarters, a stronghold, but not actually tumble it onto the heads of the inhabitants. It seemed she'd been wrong.

It was a pity that this was probably only a fluke and not the sign of something truly interesting about Lord Riddle that she'd missed all along, though. Monika didn't think she could be that lucky. Several of the other Dark Lords and Ladies in the world were boring. Lord Riddle was firmly in their ranks, unexpected behavior notwithstanding.

She had watched the wild Dark chastise him with great enjoyment. She knew the wild Dark had allowed her to see, and its amusement had fed back into hers. She and the wild Dark enjoyed a comradely relationship, most of the time. That was partly because Monika kept her own limits always in mind. She would never be so foolish as to challenge the Dark. If it required a gesture of submission from her, then she would be sure to make it.

But Kanerva was dead.

And Jing-Xi would probably insist on remaining in Britain to help Harry and the survivors patch up their wounds, and she might even break the Pact's rules in doing so, in order to carry the battle to Lord Riddle.

The Pact would shake.

Monika cocked her head, trying to decide if they would countenance interference in Britain. In the end, though, she had to shake her head. She doubted it. They didn't interfere when Muggles made a mess of things and caused even bigger slaughters in countries belonging to Lords and Ladies.

Besides, there were simply too many conflicting personalities in the Pact. It was asking much of people who shared nothing in common but power to work together. They would argue, they would discuss, they would debate, but in the end, that was all they would do.

Monika nodded. _The fall of Hogwarts is unlikely to make much difference to my plans._

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

"Greetings, Seaborn."

Pamela opened her eyes with a yelp, and then glared. A window hovered in front of her, the kind that Lords and Ladies usually used to speak to one another over long distances. Alexandre's face floated in it. By his expression, he knew, and did not care, that he had woken her from a sound sleep.

"Dark Lord, what—" she began, rubbing at her eyes.

"Hogwarts has fallen," said Alexandre, his voice toneless. "And the man who calls himself the sole Dark Lord of the world has swallowed the Lady Kanerva's power."

Pamela froze, her blood tingling. Then she said quietly, "He will be unstoppable, if that is the case."

Alexandre shrugged. As usual, he had the silvery curl of an unfulfilled prophecy around him. He stroked the edge of it like a child playing with a napkin for the lack of any other toys. "Perhaps not. The Dark also punished him, and bound him from doing any harm for the period of a few months, until the Light returns to dominate the Northern Hemisphere. Such as using the _absorbere_ gift, for example." He looked up and caught Pamela's eyes. "That might convince the Pact that they should wait to interfere."

And by the tone of his voice, Pamela knew what he thought would happen. The Pact would argue and debate and dicker among themselves, and they would point out that they had the space of some months to do so, and in the end, nothing would get done. Their tempers and the dreams of personal advantage and the old non-interference laws would, in the end, hold them back from helping Harry.

"That can't happen, Alexandre," Pamela said flatly, standing. "I'm going to call on Coatlicue. I need help to convince them that this time, we _have_ to move. Harry's not the only Lord-slayer in the world any more, and we know that Lord Riddle won't have done it in self-defense." She started to turn away. Coatlicue might be sleeping as well, or involved in a delicate magical procedure, but that didn't matter. Pamela would drag her out of either one.

"I will help you."

Pamela turned and stared at him, then shook her head. She didn't understand the odd truce they seemed to have come to at all. "Why, Alexandre? We serve different allegiances, and I know that you don't have a prophecy that tells you the proper way to defeat Voldemort, or you would have mentioned it by now."

He gave her one of those unfathomable smiles. "Many prophecies that speak of how to defeat Riddle are flying around Britain right now. Call it—helping my research to help you."

_If he can throw his voice behind mine and Coatlicue's, our arguments will carry greater weight. _And they might join Jing-Xi, too, if she had survived the fall of Hogwarts, though Pamela was sure Alexandre would have told her if Voldemort had drained her friend.

But she wasn't sure that she could trust Alexandre to continue taking their side, which was the whole problem.

They needed him, however, and it would help if the Dark Lords and Ladies didn't see this as just another effort by the Light to meddle and overstep their bounds even during the time of year when the Dark was most powerful in the north. In the end, Pamela nodded and drew a connection from Alexandre's window across time and space to Mexico, where they would wake Coatlicue. "Come with me, then."

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Jing-Xi knew there were probably people wondering if she had survived. She knew that Harry and others would need her help. There was a government to be rebuilt, wizards of the Light to reassure, and a nervous, shaky Pact to convince that this case warranted interference.

But, first, she had other, immediate responsibilities. Light wizards and witches did not dash about like crop-tailed Crups yapping about what to do in a crisis. And Light Ladies had a certain dignity to maintain, always.

She crouched next to a witch who had escaped Hogwarts just as one of the ceilings came down, pressing a hand against her leg. The wound stopped bleeding, a flow that would have cost the woman her life quickly. The moans quieted, and Jing-Xi stroked her hair and willed peace and sleep into her before stepping back and nodding to one of the wizards who accompanied them.

"Pick her up."

He moved at once to obey her. Jing-Xi saw the fear in his eyes, and felt a moment's sadness. They needed a leader so badly, these survivors. They might have fought back and questioned her in any ordinary situation, but now they were simply grateful that there was someone more powerful to help them.

But then again, argument and debate in this situation were not productive. Jing-Xi had found and guided about forty adults from the falling school, along with a few students left behind in the mad rush, and now they were on a wide plain to the north of Hogwarts, heading further north still, into bad weather and a safehouse that Harry had established in the Orkneys. Since none of the people with her had seen the safehouse, and because they did not want to leave each other and Jing-Xi did not want to leave them, they had to go on foot for now, instead of Apparating.

But Jing-Xi had been through worse conditions than this. She turned her face calmly to the next wounded person and knelt down. Her magic surged and sang around her. Even in the middle of the Dark, the Light shone, and Jing-Xi was one of those whose duty was to keep it shining.

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

Connor was—numb, really.

It hadn't hit him, while they were escaping the school, that the school itself was going to be gone when they emerged. But now it had, and with it came the visions of those children he couldn't save, the young Gryffindors and Ravenclaws crushed by the falling rocks.

And old bells of inadequacy rang in the back of his head. _If your magic was stronger, if you were really the Boy-Who-Lived, if you were a real hero, then you would have found a way to spare their lives._

Connor tried to shake that away, but the emotion, the guilt, possessed and haunted him. He would have liked to stand and move about the room, as Harry was doing, and comfort those who had come to Silver-Mirror with them and badly needed the comfort. He would have liked to be with Parvati, who had her arms around the hysterically crying Padma. He would have liked to indulge even in grief for Luna, who had died so suddenly and so senselessly.

But he couldn't. He was numb, and he could only sit and stare. He hated to focus solely on himself, but, at the moment, it literally felt as though he couldn't do anything else.

He closed his eyes, and slumped back in the chair he sat in. Some hero he made. Some Gryffindor he was. What had happened to the reserves of strength he'd always prided himself on? It wasn't as though his twin brother had died, or his girlfriend. He'd seen most of his friends escape. Peter had even appeared briefly, to squeeze Connor's shoulder and smile anxiously at him before hurrying off to do something else.

And yet his hands were blocks of ice on the ends of his arms, and he shook now and then as if the ice were moving up his limbs to devour him.

He wondered if Lily and James had been like this, the first time they'd encountered true evil, and then snorted bitterly. _Not likely. Lily was so confident I don't think she ever let reality dent her sacrificial mindset. And James got along without attending to the darkness in himself at all. No, they've never felt like this. And Harry has the strength to keep going. This little weakness is mine, all mine._

And then arms were around him, warm arms that defeated the ice, and before he could start or jump up and throw the arms off, a familiar voice, hoarse and cracking with strain, murmured in his ear, "Connor. You came through. It's all right. I heard about what you did in the school. You're a fucking hero, Connor."

If anyone but Harry had said that, Connor might have been able to stay numb. But, Merlin damn it, he was thawing.

And tears were spilling down his face, and even though he wanted to be strong and above it all, he found himself turning and grabbing onto Harry with a death grip, returning warm embrace for warm embrace, desperately needing his brother to touch him like that.

"I let them die," he whispered, through sobs. "I only s-saved two. They—"

"That was two more than you might have saved, if you'd just stood there and let the fall of the roof stun you," Harry whispered into his ear, and rubbed his back roughly. His voice really did sound horrible, but he went on speaking despite that. "You did so well, Connor. I'm so proud of you. And grieving is hardly something to despise. The ones who would shed no tears over this are the people we're meant to fight. Go ahead and weep, Connor."

It felt so _girly_ to do this, but Harry's hand was rubbing, rubbing, forcing the tears up and out of him, melting the ice that had them locked inside it. And Connor cried and cried until his nose was running and his cheeks were wet and the skin of his cheeks hurt from the tears running over them.

Then his head felt warm and full, and sometime between one moment and the next, Parvati was there, to comfort him and be comforted in turn. Connor closed his eyes and clung to her desperately.

They were still alive. And thanks to him, a few more people were alive than would otherwise be. He had to think about that.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Her mother had been wrong.

That was all Ginny could think about, as she bustled through Silver-Mirror, heating warm water for wounds and for tea, holding the hands of those children who needed it, casting strengthening spells on the wards, and laying down blankets to create temporary beds.

Molly had wanted to hide her daughter away from the world. She had been sure that Ginny would crumple under the pressure of so many responsibilities, or fear death now that it had taken Percy. And Ginny was the littlest one, the youngest, the baby. Molly might have clung to even a youngest son like that (though privately Ginny doubted it; her parents had always treated her differently because she was a girl, even as they denied that they did).

But Ginny had known that she would be stifled like that, and had pushed to break free, first by going to Woodhouse, and then staying in Hogwarts to help with the dueling class.

And she had been right to do it.

Even now, in the midst of grief, of reeling shock that the heart of the wizarding world had fallen, with so much death hanging around her and so many people she would never see again, Ginny had never felt so fiercely alive.

_This_ was where she belonged, in the heart of a dangerous situation, dashing from one small crisis to the next, lending help because she was and could be a source of strength. Not imprisoned behind walls, but out in the middle of the battle where the refugees had fled.

Saving people.

Ginny gave a smile as she wiped away a Slytherin first-year's tears that was part tenderness and part pure personal satisfaction. She preferred to think of the end of the war right now, and a Ministry that could be rebuilt, and the expressions on her parents' faces when she applied to be an Auror, as she would.

She belonged in the heart of danger. Someday, she hoped, her mother and father would come to terms with that.

In the meantime, the expressions on their faces were certain to be priceless.

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

Zacharias had never felt so strong in his life.

The run through the tunnel after the spirit of his ancestor had been terrifying. The fear—the certainty—that they were losing Hufflepuffs behind them as they ran, that children were stumbling and falling, or that someone had taken a wrong turn in the darkness, sat on his shoulder like a living thing. And then he had stumbled out of the hole and not seen Hermione for a long moment, and terror had eaten him alive.

But then he had seen her, and the terror had relented, and Zacharias had remembered what he was: the most intelligent wizard in Hogwarts, the one who had never yet let fear overtake his reason.

And, now, one potential linchpin in a new Light resistance.

He was the son of the witch who led the British half of the Light alliance, and who was currently involved in some rather intense negotiations with neutral pureblood families to come to Harry's side. He was a close confidant of Harry's, and as good as married to the most intelligent witch in the country. He already wielded adult legal influence as his family's heir, and he had financial resources at his command, and even the romance of being Hufflepuff's heir, should he choose to use it.

The world had changed.

Zacharias would be one of those who insured that the change did not destroy all of them. He had already decided that. The world needed someone who would dig in stubbornly and never let go.

And badgers were very good at doing that.

SSSSSSSSSSS

Owen touched the burn on his brother's cheek cautiously. It had healed when he frantically applied medical magic to it, though it would leave an ugly scar. Owen was more concerned about the swelling on his head, which could indicate a concussion, and the fact that all attempts to wake Michael so far had been useless. Regulus Black had taken a cursory look at him and announced that there was nothing to be done. Michael might never wake up, but he was breathing deeply, steadily, and many other people weren't. Without Madam Pomfrey—whom they didn't know for sure had survived—they had no one who could say that Michael's sleep was dangerous.

So Owen was left to care for his twin in an out-of-the-way corner where no one would notice.

It wasn't as though his Lord needed him right now. Harry moved from station to station with the grace of a dancer, always where he was most needed at the moment. Now he was collecting information from a Ravenclaw student on her parents' names and direction, so that he could send an owl to them assuring them she was still alive. Now he applied his magic to a large wound in Justin Finch-Fletchley's side, making sure it slid shut and stopped threatening his life. Now he consulted with Snape, who had finally returned from the rubble with the news that no one lived beneath it, on the best way to phrase an announcement to the _Daily Prophet_ in the morning. Harry didn't need taking care of right now.

But no one cared for Michael but him.

Owen turned his head back to his brother and rested his hand on the burn once more. Michael murmured and rolled towards him.

"If you wake up," Owen whispered, "it'll be different. I didn't know you were so full of hatred as to attack Voldemort like that. I know I haven't spent enough time with you, now. We haven't really talked about Mum and our sister, and we should. And maybe I can convince Harry to give you another chance. But you need to wake up, Michael." He watched his twin's shut eyes and felt a curl of despair in the center of his chest. "Please wake up."

Letters of fire flashed in front of his eyes. _He will._

Harry's hand was on his shoulder then, and the scar on his arm tingled with warmth and sweetness. Owen looked up, seeking support despite the fact that he was really the one who should be offering it. "Really? Do you think so?"

_I'll go into his mind and drag him out myself if he doesn't._ Harry smiled at him and squeezed his shoulder. _We need him here._

He turned away then, and Owen went back to his brother, a little soothed, a little calmed. Things were not perfect, but they were better than they had been, and on this dark night, that was all he could truly ask for.

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

Draco noticed when Harry slipped out of the room, of course. It seemed that no one else did. Snape was trying to cope with the demands of children still awake, as well as work out where other students might have fled and how they could contact them and the best way to tell some families that their children were dead. And for others, what mattered most was the effect Harry spread with his presence, rather than his presence itself: the sense that, really, everything would be all right after all, that they would come through this night and see the dawn.

But Draco's focus was Harry. He'd played the adult and the hero and the Slytherin leader. Now he wanted to be the boyfriend, the joined partner, and the source of strength, and so he followed Harry.

Harry walked out of Silver-Mirror altogether, into the darkness and the cold. Draco cast a Warming Charm on himself and kept walking, hoping Harry wouldn't Apparate. Harry didn't cast a glance behind him, as if he didn't care who followed him.

He halted at last on a broad, flat field of dead grass, and just stared up at the stars for a moment. Draco paused, confused.

Then Harry _screamed._

Black lightning leaped from earth to heaven, a bolt that didn't go out, but formed itself around Harry and sheathed him in crackling, constantly twisting obsidian walls. Draco shivered. He could feel the pull of the lightning from here. Warmth flooded away from his skin, and for a moment it seemed as if his magic would follow it.

Harry's wail went on, a more extensive sound that Draco would have thought he could make with his ruined voice. It no longer sounded human. It was the scream of a great sea creature in terrible pain. It was the voice of someone, or something, who wanted very badly to die.

_Or maybe kill his enemies, _Draco thought, watching as the lightning split and Harry's arms extended towards the sky. Power rose around him, a curtain so dead black that it punished the night for existing. Snow at his feet froze into glittering chunks of glass. Serpents wreathed Harry, every inch of him, traveling back and forth across his body like the hive of the Many who lived in the Forbidden Forest. Or had lived. Draco wondered if Voldemort had killed them, too.

Harry screamed, and screamed.

And from the stars, something answered him.

An enormous white serpent with black, feathery wings curled down from overhead. Draco cowered. He knew this was the wild Dark, even if it didn't look like a manticore. Nothing else had that sense of grace and power about it. Nothing else was so inhuman. And nothing else could have come from starlight and yet looked like a child of dead worlds.

The white serpent gazed at Harry with cold blue eyes. And then it turned away and wreathed its body to the side and up in a loop that made the stars jangle like rung bells and the sky seam and crack like lava.

Harry answered it. His magic rose from the ground and then came down again like the stamp of a great boot. The earth shook. Draco stumbled to his knees in the snow, but never, never, took his eyes off the man he'd fallen in love with.

He knelt there as a terrible concussive dance he did not understand played out in front of him, the wild Dark looping and slithering and writhing runes across the sky, and Harry answering with jar after jar of magic, crash after crash of furious thunder. Draco sometimes had to close his eyes, and sometimes turn his head away. Harry was never less than beautiful in such a state, but grief and guilt and loathing had marred the beauty. Draco might observe this, but he could not share it.

He did look in time to see the end, as the white serpent came down like another bolt of lightning and briefly caged Harry in ice-blue fangs. Draco held his breath. Would it harm him, even now? His hand already clutched his wand before he made a conscious decision to do so.

But the wild Dark simply held Harry there. And Harry stood there looking as if he didn't care whether he lived or died.

The serpent uttered a freezing hiss that made Draco's hands curl and cramp. "Should you ever Declare for me," it whispered, "I would welcome such a servant. Remember that, _vates_. Should you need a sanctuary, a home, I offer it. For you are not only free, you are also wild."

Letters of fire appeared in the air in answer. Draco had to turn his head away again, bow it and stare at the ground.

_I'm tired, and I want the end._

"We all grow weary of our assigned tasks, free one," the wild Dark said. "Even I sometimes wish to shine at Midsummer instead of Midwinter. But this weariness will pass. Your strength is not yet played out." It paused. Then it said, "Someday, it may be. When it is, I hope that you will come and consent to fly on my winds. I have lost a daughter tonight. There were wonders I never showed her. I wish to someday show them to you."

The writing rippled and changed, hanging in the air like the shades of the Aurora Borealis. Draco read it from the corner of his eye.

_There won't be enough left of me to do that, if I decide to end it._

The wild Dark chuckled, a sound that twisted into a hiss at the end. "You would be surprised by what measures magic takes to survive, free one. And, in the end, you _are_ magic. Remember that. You are more than all the promises you make. You could turn your back on them, if you were a different kind of person, and abandon them. You have done enough in this fight."

_Sometimes I want to_, the letters said.

"And then the night ends," said the white serpent, and broke apart into flakes of snow that settled on Harry's head. Harry stared at them, then looked up and towards the east. Following his gaze, Draco saw the first traces of false dawn.

He took a deep breath and stood.

Harry whipped around to face him. For a moment, his face was inhuman, stretched and scratched with mysteries that Draco didn't know, like the shadows of bare tree branches.

And then he gave a little nod, whether in reply to Draco or the wild Dark he didn't know, and walked past him towards Silver-Mirror.

His hand, freezing in such a way as to show he hadn't cast a Warming Charm, brushed Draco's in passing.


	70. Messengers of the Lightning

**Chapter Fifty-Six: Messengers of the Lightning**

Hawthorn sat holding a mouthful of tea between her teeth and watched the headline as if the paper might burst.

But it didn't. It just went right on saying what it said, in large letters, sprayed across the front page as if someone had painted rather than printed them.

_**HOGWARTS FALLS**_

There was no author's name, though Hawthorn would have bet her newfound freedom that it was Rita Skeeter. They'd simply left off the name, she thought, as she dashed through the article, and shook her head. There was one photograph, but it was really all they needed, with Hogwarts gleaming with snow in the light of the moon and the stars.

She stood. The article contained little detail beyond the fact that the school had come down because of an attack by Voldemort, and that the "intrepid reporters" sent to the site had uncovered traces of Dark magic. No ideas about whether Harry had survived, about how many children had escaped in the fall, or about what had happened to Voldemort when he finished toppling the school—why he wasn't currently ruling Britain, for example.

It did make her wonder, for one lonely moment, if Pansy had foreseen the school falling, if her beloved daughter had known that many of the students who lived around her on a daily basis were destined to die in a few years.

For now, Hawthorn would work on the assumption that Harry was alive, and to be found in one of the strongholds he'd established. It might take her some time to work through all the Floo connections and find them all, but she would locate him. Or she could try the phoenix song communication spell, of course, but she almost feared to. If the song warbled again and again and called on nothing, if Harry lay iin some cavern of cold and darkness under that fallen rock—

And then her wrist warbled.

Hawthorn closed her eyes, and shook her head. She'd swallowed the tea, but crumpled the _Prophet_ in a sudden, too-firm grip. Breathing shallowly, she managed to force her eyes open, and ask in silence, "Yes? Who is it that's speaking to me?"

"Hawthorn," said Harry's voice.

And, though she'd tried to assume he was alive, it hadn't been such a default assumption, after all. Hawthorn let loose a quiet _whoosh_ of breath and was thankful that she was sitting down, at least. "Harry," she said, voice far too alien to her ears. "You're alive."

"I am," said Harry. "And a fair number of us managed to escape the school's fall. We're at Silver-Mirror. I'm going to send an announcement to the _Prophet_ in a short time, but we had matters to take care of first."

"You need apologize for nothing," Hawthorn whispered. "You have kept hope alive, Harry, and that's more than enough to make up for any delay."

Harry kept silent for a moment, as if he didn't know how to deal with that. Then his voice smoothed and streamlined. "Hawthorn. Can you come to Silver-Mirror? We are badly in need of competent adults, Dark or no, to help us get the children back to their families, and begin establishing the first steps of the government."

"Yes," said Hawthorn, standing. Her heart had started beating again, and, with it, the notion of ever fearing to contact Harry seemed silly and pointless, the kind of thing a child would hide from. "Of course I can, Harry. And I'm bringing a potion with me that you may find—interesting."

She could almost feel his eyebrows rise. He knew that her specialty was blood curses, not potions. But he said, "Whatever may help, Hawthorn. We're badly in need of hope," and then ended the communication spell.

Hawthorn turned and sped lightly up the stairs to her potions lab. She gathered up the notes on the lycanthropy treatment, the vials of potion she had—complete but for the final step, which required part of the magic from the person being cured—and as much as she could of the ingredients to be used for making more vials, shrinking them where that was practical and packing them carefully where it wasn't.

She hadn't talked to Harry about the potion yet partially because she was still trying to create a variant that wouldn't take such a toll in magical strength and strength of will from the patient, and partially because she'd wanted to carry the potion to him as a triumph in a dark moment, when he was most in need of hope.

_I think that moment's come, don't you?_

She swept the final notes into a book, shut the book, and tossed it into her trunk. Then she whirled down the steps to pack clothing. She knew it might be a long time before she could return to the Garden, a matter of months or more.

She didn't care. This was another chance to matter to Harry's cause, to do vastly important work. This was _wonderful._

SSSSSSSSSSSS

"It can wait a few hours."

_You don't really believe that._ Harry stared into Snape's eyes, and waited. This was the fifth argument they'd had in the last fifteen minutes. Harry suspected that they'd managed to have no arguments before those fifteen minutes only because Snape was struggling too hard under the pressure of thinking of himself as Headmaster to worry about Harry.

But now he suddenly seemed to realize that Harry hadn't slept yet, and he was trying to send him off to bed, even though Harry had just contacted Skeeter and she'd be arriving soon to carry the all-important news that many people had escaped Hogwarts to the _Prophet_.

Snape snarled at him now. "I think I can hold off an interfering woman for the time it will take you to nap," he said, and paced back and forth on the other side of a table crowded with maps, half-composed letters, and many, many other documents that made this room, Harry supposed, their default war room. Once, it had been a study. Snape whirled around and stared at him. "In the past, when you have refused to sleep, you have been nearly useless to us in a short time," he said, and Harry actually smirked at Snape's highly unsuccessful attempt to soften his voice. "We can do this without you, Harry, in the interests of keeping our savior safe and healthy."

_You can't,_ said Harry. _If I'm not there when Skeeter arrives, she might start spreading rumors that I'm injured, or disfigured, or dead. She's on my side as much as she's on anyone's, yes, but she also wants news to report. And the sooner we can get this report to the Prophet, the sooner we can start replacing panic with strength, rumors with real information. I'll sleep later._ He took another look at the list of names on the table. They only had a few unidentified ones left, those of children either too wounded or too hysterical last night to give coherent information about how to contact their parents. They should wake up soon—the effects of Calming Draughts and sleeping charms only lasting so long—and then they would, Harry hoped, be fit to talk.

"Is that a promise?"

Harry rolled his eyes. _Yes. It is._ Snape opened his mouth as if to begin badgering him again. Harry narrowed his eyes slightly and did some badgering of his own. _Why is it that you look ready to leap out of your skin every time Regulus walks into the same room?_

His father now looked ready to kill. Harry leaned an elbow on the table and studied Snape with a mild amusement he was relieved he could feel. Last night, when he was still full of the rage caused by the damage Voldemort had inflicted on so many innocents, he would have struck at the slightest sign of a threat. But the concussive dance with the wild Dark had helped him in more ways than he knew at the time. _Well?_

"That is none of your business," Snape finally said, in a strangled tone. "I will tell you when I am ready to do so."

Harry shrugged. _And my sleeping habits are none of yours_. He ignored Snape's attempt to argue otherwise, putting the finishing touches on the letter that he intended to send Miriam Smith and the pureblood families she was addressing. They needed a government-in-exile _soon_. It was one thing for the British wizarding world to absorb the loss of the Ministry while Hogwarts was still standing; there was another building to direct hope and terror towards. But now that had fallen, too, and Harry was afraid that a substantial proportion of the wizarding population might simply _give up._ They were, at the very least, incapable of actually stepping up and defending themselves, as Candida Coltsfoot had proven all too well in the way she represented the Hogsmeade wizards and witches.

Regulus intruded before Snape could say anything coherent, murmuring, "Harry, our guest is at the wards."

And _there_ it was; Harry knew he hadn't imagined it. Snape's shoulders stiffened, and he looked as if he were keeping his back turned to Regulus with sheer force of will. Harry watched in slight amusement for a moment, then shrugged. Perhaps it really wasn't any of his business.

That didn't mean he wouldn't bring it up if Snape tried interrogating him again, though.

He went to see Rita, while he kept the slight, bright amusement drifting in his mind. It was a slender reed to hang onto over the sea of emotions that he would be feeling otherwise, but he needed to use whatever he could. He was keeping just ahead of the tide that would incapacitate him. As long as he could do that, then he thought he would do well.

_Voldemort tried to destroy Hogwarts, and our world, and the resistance, and me. I can only let him have succeeded in the first of those goals._

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Rita had to admit, as she looked around the entrance hall of Silver-Mirror, that _this_ was the kind of headquarters Harry should have had all along. The enormous pool of golden fire overhead, with drops of light sliding down chains that stretched to the walls to light lamps and then crawling back up the chains again to the pool, would have made a dramatic background for stories of the Boy-Who-Lived and his Alliance of Sun and Shadows. Her photographer would have loved to take pictures here and make subtle and important points with them on the front page of the _Prophet_. And since Harry had ended up claiming the Black name as his own, he could have done it at any time. Rita wondered why he hadn't.

"Hello, Rita."

She turned, and saw Harry coming out of a door in the right wall. And she raised one perfectly shaped eyebrow, because she had expected a boy frazzled by the loss of his home, or, at best, a leader who had seen many of his friends and followers die.

Instead, Harry watched her with calm green eyes, and lifted one eyebrow right back to her. He wore robes smudged and stained from the travails of a long flight, with spots of melted snow and blood, but he looked as if he had passed through those trials and come out the stronger for them. Rita was grudgingly impressed, and also felt a stirring of interest. _This_ was what her readers would want to see, this young man, the hero, the Boy-Who-Lived.

If Harry was merely putting on a façade, it was still an impressive one, because Rita couldn't tell that it was a façade. She nodded to him, and took one of the chairs placed together in the middle of the hall. "Harry," she said. "How many people would you say escaped the fall of the school?"

"We have nearly sixty people here now," said Harry, as if he'd expected the question, and sat down in the other chair. "Those numbers might seem small, but remember that many children went home for the winter holidays. And there are probably other, smaller groups which escaped in other directions. The number of individuals who might be at home now, or in St. Mungo's being treated, is countless, of course. I hope that they will make their presence known as soon as possible, so that we can sort the living from the dead and have hope. Voldemort did not succeed in what he tried to do."

"What would you say was his most important goal?" Rita scribbled furiously, not caring if Harry did look at her with a certain amusement. This was one of the most important tools in the battle to wipe off the defeated expressions she'd seen that morning in the office, before the amulet squeezed and she could tell her co-workers that Harry was still alive.

"To inflict a psychic wound on us that we couldn't recover from." Harry folded his hands serenely in his lap. Rita almost regretted that. A tug at his sleeve or collar would have said he was human, and would have been the kind of telling detail she cherished, though she probably wouldn't have reported it to her readers. "To kill me if he could. To take children as hostages, or drain their magic."

"And did anyone caught in the fall survive it?" Rita removed the charm on her quill that slightly altered the words it copied down. Harry's words were too good not to be taken straight as they were.

"No," said Harry. "Headmaster Snape went back to the ruins to check, but sensed no trace of life."

Rita checked at the _Headmaster Snape_, but Harry went on looking as if nothing were wrong, so she continued writing. "And what are your plans from this point forward?"

"In the short term, to return the surviving children to their parents, and inform those whom we know for certain have lost their sons and daughters." Harry's smile was sad. "To search for the missing. To mourn for the dead. For example, we know that Headmistress Minerva McGonagall perished before the school began to fall.

"In the long term?" He lifted his head, and Rita caught a gleam of magic around him, and a smell like mountain snow in alpine meadows on cold winter mornings. "To establish a wizarding government that will address the concerns and problems of the new world we have now. To work with people who want to help, whether or not they had children at Hogwarts or will swear the oaths of the Alliance of Sun and Shadow. To ask for international help in evacuations, in finding and securing food, and accepting and resettling refugees. I know several wizards in the French Ministry who have offered to show me how their offices coped with such demands in the war against Grindelwald, when many French wizards and witches had to leave their homes. Their help is, of course, welcome."

Rita paused. She wasn't entirely sure that what she said next would go into the article, but it was a question that she wanted to ask for her own peace of mind. "Have you ever thought of giving up, Harry?"

She got a baring of teeth, and a gleam from green eyes, and a lift of a proud head that would have done a unicorn credit. "Never."

Rita nodded. Then she returned to asking how he intended to pursue the war against Voldemort.

Amazingly, it seemed that Harry had spoken the truth: he had come through one of the worst things that could happen and retained his strength. Voldemort's strike to inflict that psychic wound had cost the Dark Lord more than he could have possibly gained.

Rita was glad that she lived in a world where such things happened, and in a time when she could report on them.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry leaned an elbow on the windowsill and watched as the first round of owls flew away. They carried the most urgent news: the letters asking for firmer alliances or for practical advice from the French and Spanish Ministries, and telling parents their children were still alive. Of course parents deserved to know if their children were definitely dead, too, or missing, but the news could wait the few hours it would take the owls to come back with their messages.

He meant what he'd told Skeeter. They would come through this, pile the wreckage back up and climb out of the hole, because they had to. Voldemort had made a mistake as he did at everything, because he had failed to actually _kill_ Harry.

"Harry."

He turned around curiously. Owen stood behind him, his face weary, but stretched in a wide smile.

"Michael's awake," he said simply. "And he's asking for you."

Arching his eyebrows, Harry followed Owen to his brother's bedside. Michael, like so many, lay on a makeshift pallet of blankets in one of Silver-Mirror's side-rooms. And now his eyes were open, and more peaceful than Harry had seen them in a long time, perhaps since Michael first confessed to having a crush on Draco.

He knelt down beside the other boy, and waited for him to speak. Michael seemed content to regard him a long time in silence before he did so.

"I realize now how stupid I was to hate you," he whispered.

Harry blinked. He hadn't expected that, either.

"You can't cause harm to my family the way Voldemort can," Michael continued. "And then I tried to strike back at him for my mother's death, and my sister's, and he slapped me aside like a bug." He touched the burn on his cheek self-consciously. Harry had been trying not to stare at it. It looked as though a four-fingered hand had sunk into Michael's skin, and because they had no trained mediwizards among them, he would probably wear the brand for life. Harry made a mental note to contact St. Mungo's as soon as possible. Some of the refugees would need to be treated for delayed shock and spell damage. "And you're the only one we have who can actually fight him. So I'm going to do my best not to hate you any more, and to help you instead of hinder you. I wanted you to know that."

Harry nodded. He'd used glamour charms to disguise the screech in his voice when he spoke with Skeeter, and magic to boost his whisper to the point where it could actually be understood, but he still didn't want to speak aloud when he didn't have to. He did sign in the air, _I understand. Thank you._

Michael seemed content with the words. He closed his eyes and lay back on the blankets, and Owen helped him, hands fussing tenderly around his brother. Harry smiled. He was sure he would have done the same thing if Connor had been injured in the escape from the castle.

He stood, and went to write the letters to St. Mungo's, and the parents whose children were dead. He suspected the one to Luna's father would hurt the most. But he couldn't afford to give up and think about that hurt. He would keep his head above water, and continue swimming.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Jing-Xi clasped her hands around the cup of mulled wine and drank deeply from it. It made quite a change to be sitting inside the warm, dry safehouse, protected by house elf magic, and with the knowledge that the wizards and witches she'd been escorting now had warm beds and warm drinks of their own, from stumbling across rocky islands in the freezing wind, trying to remember the right way to locate the wards that would tell her where the house was.

She'd expected one of her friends to call upon her sooner or later, and so wasn't surprised when the air in front of her turned yellow and opened. She _was_ surprised to see Alexandre staring at her from the window, instead of Pamela or Coatlicue. They were the two she was closest to in actual friendship, if one didn't count the odd bond with Kanerva that Jing-Xi knew was really only a friendship to her.

"Alexandre?" she asked. "What is it?"

"Greetings, Jing-Xi," said the Dark Lord, his voice overly formal. "I am glad that you have escaped the ruin of Hogwarts, though of course sad to hear that a powerful witch who shares my allegiance is gone from the world."

Jing-Xi set the wine down with a bump. "What happened?" she demanded, and rose to her feet. Her magic turned the chair she sat on to ivory. The only sign that Alexandre might be impressed was his eyebrow creeping up. Of course, Harry was the only Lord-level wizard Jing-Xi had ever met who showed open signs of awe at her power.

"The Pact has heard the news," he said, "including the news of Kanerva's draining and your survival. So they held a—discussion—about what to do."

Jing-Xi bowed her head slightly, staring at Alexandre from beneath her eyelids. Her hair constantly stirred around her, movements that had become stronger since their mistress perished. Kanerva's winds would never leave her, Jing-Xi knew, and she suspected that any stragglers left in the world had migrated to join the enchantment that surrounded her. "If they were to speak together, I should have been notified. And so should Harry, if they actually want him to obey the laws that govern the Pact."

"They felt they already knew what you would say," Alexandre commented, face utterly blank.

And just like that, Jing-Xi knew the truth. She said quietly, "They decided against me. Against Harry."

"Oh, no, do not call it deciding _against_ you," Alexandre murmured. "Call it a vote for the continuance of tradition. Call it a weighing of one part of the world against the rest. Call it a chance for young Harry to prove himself. Even Monika argued tenderly, and movingly, that you should have the opportunity to devote yourself to China without worrying about the British Isles. Oh, how brilliantly she argued. One would think that you had never had a better friend in the world, and that Harry cared only about using you to benefit his own selfish interests."

"They want me to leave Britain," Jing-Xi said.

"Yes," said Alexandre, with a slow, owl's blink.

"And if I do not?"

"They will send Brewer and Elena to retrieve you." Alexandre touched a curl of prophecy that suddenly showed itself above his right shoulder. "Clearly, you cannot be allowed to remain. You are disturbing the balance of Lord-level power by staying where you are, and this war is not yours to fight. They are fearful that you might be tempted to go on the offensive, and break the Pact's dictates, after Voldemort's smashing of Hogwarts. They think that you need to be recalled home. If you think about it," he added, in that inflectionless voice, "they are really and truly protecting you from yourself."

Jing-Xi closed her eyes in frustration. They were right not to send Brewer alone. Jing-Xi could handle the Light Lord of South Africa. He never made up his mind on anything unless pushed. She could have talked him out of what the Pact wanted, especially by showing him images of the refugees and hinting that their wretched condition was his fault in some way. His guilt complex was very strong.

But Elena…the Dark Lady of Peru had no pity in her. And Jing-Xi did not dare allow her to set foot on Britain's shores, whether she came with the Pact's permission or not. Where Elena went, people disappeared. No one had yet managed to figure out what she did with them, not even Coatlicue, who geographically was closest to her. The people of Britain had already suffered enough. They did not deserve to attract any of Elena's dead-eyed attention.

Which, doubtless, was the reason the Pact had detailed both her and Brewer to fetch Jing-Xi back. They knew the threat of Elena would make her listen.

"I hate them, sometimes," she whispered, and she did not even care if Alexandre carried the words back to them.

"Now, come, Jing-Xi," Alexandre said. "How can one make a difference in discussions that one is not invited to? Come back and speak in your own voice. In time, it might make a difference."

She raised her head and stared at him. Then she shook her head. "You are the hardest of any in the Pact to understand," she murmured.

Alexandre smirked as if she had given him a great compliment. "Compared to prophecies and their life-interaction, I am very simple," he said. "The Pact did say that they would wait a few days before sending Brewer and Elena, to give you time to 'come to your senses.' So you might as well use the time to tell Harry that you're departing, and why."

"And that he'll have to struggle against Voldemort on his own," Jing-Xi murmured, her mood growing bleak again.

"The Dark Lord should watch himself," said Alexandre. "The air around Britain is _alive_ with prophecies, all intertwined. The future does not favor him. And the Dark has punished him so that he cannot fight Harry until the spring equinox."

Jing-Xi had to smile at that. A bleak wind never blew without some bright cloud hanging on it. "I will tell him."

She stood silent when Alexandre had vanished, considering. She could not defy the Pact, not when such defiance earned innocent people punishment, or could start a war among the Lords and Ladies.

But perhaps she could work at a distance to do the right thing. She would not give up and go tamely away. The Light did not yield so easily.

SSSSSSSSS

Indigena stooped over her Lord and swiped at his forehead with a wet rag. When they returned home, her Lord had told her his newest plan with a minimum of elaborations. It would fall on the spring equinox, the first day that he could strike back against Harry and use his _absorbere_ gift again. In the meantime, Indigena was to tend his body, and make sure that no enemies came near the burrow.

And she would tend her garden and not have to participate in torture of any kind, though perhaps some killing.

He had not even questioned her about the deaths of Oaken and Sylvan.

Indigena sat in her garden when she had finished cleaning her Lord and setting up new wards that wouldn't permit anyone but her to enter. She lifted her head to a piquant breeze warmed by the charms around the garden and tinted with the sharp scent of snow, and sniffed it.

It felt as though a year had turned back, and she stayed with her Lord because she was the only Death Eater left, and because he was running a long, subtle plan that he would need someone to guard him throughout.

She had never felt so content since she took the Mark.

She did stiffen when the wards cast a cascade of scents into her nostrils, and she saw Evan standing on the edge of her garden and staring at her. But he said nothing. He didn't even smile. He simply regarded her with that same intense gaze for long moments, then reached under his robe.

In silence, he held up the golden Hufflepuff Cup.

And then he vanished away, and left Indigena with a faint shiver of both fear and relief to add to the half-warm, half-cold breeze.

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry looked up from his letters when Regulus walked into the room. The man had the _oddest _expression on his face. _What is it? _Harry asked via green letters, wondering if it had something to do with Snape. If it did, he would refuse to help. Whatever lay between them was solely between them, and they really should deal with it on their own.

"Harry, there are—" Regulus cut off for a moment, then shook his head. "There are Unspeakables at the wards," he said.

Harry stood. _Come to attack us?_

"They say—" Regulus cleared his throat. "They say that they're from the Stone. And they're here to offer us an alliance. The Stone survived the collapse at the Ministry. It finds you—interesting. And now that it's drawn new servants to it and bound them, it wants to offer you its help, and the help of those artifacts that it did manage to preserve when the Department was attacked."

As if in a dream, Harry followed Regulus into the main hall of Silver-Mirror. There stood two gray-cloaked men, though both with their hoods thrown back so he could see their faces. And one of them held a gray stone with a dragon's head projecting from it, which Harry recognized from the time, long ago, when the Unspeakables had made an attack on Woodhouse.

"Greetings," hissed the dragon's head. "I have an alliance for you." Then it paused. "Was that too formal? Too immoral?"

Harry shook his head. He didn't know what would happen next, and the fact was starting to worry him a little.

But, as with the emotions and the new government, he just had to continue swimming, and do his best to keep his head above water.

"Not immoral at all," he said. "Please come in."


	71. Christmas In a Rush

**Chapter Fifty-Seven: Christmas In a Rush**

**_REACTIONS TO HOPE:_**

**_Wizarding populace of Britain torn_**

_By: Rita Skeeter_

In response to Harry Black's speech about hope that ran in this paper yesterday, wizards and witches all across the country have owled us to let us know how they feel about a new government. Below are printed excerpts of their letters.

"I suppose it's the best we can do for now," says Mary Hostess, who so far has been unable to leave Britain due to her shop in Diagon Alley, Mary's Marvelous Mixes. "But I do hope that the wizarding government, whatever it calls itself and whoever heads it, is established now. There are a thousand and one things that you never realize the Ministry did until it was gone."

"I don't think Harry Black ought to have a part in the new government at all, to be honest," said Georgianna Fallfair, who lives in Muggle London. "He couldn't prevent the fall of the Ministry, and he couldn't even prevent the fall of Hogwarts, where he lived and many of his friends went to school. It's time that he step aside and let someone without such a blemished record take over. It would increase people's trust in this new government."

"The Light wizards and the Order of the Firebird are committed to working with the vates." Cupressus Apollonis, leader of the Irish half of the new alliance which has taken to calling itself the Hope for Light, sounded calm and confident in his letter. "We are engaged in talks still with many families who feel left aside or pushed out of the sun, but we make constant progress. We need Harry Black, his magic and his good sense and his reputation. We absolutely cannot function without him."

Miriam Smith, the British leader of Hope for Light, echoed Apollonis's sentiments in her communication. "There may have been a time when we shied at the thought or him or decided that his crimes were too great to permit him inclusion in our fellowship, but that time is past. It must be. We have suffered too many losses striving against each other while He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named wins victories. If nothing else, the fall of Hogwarts and the Ministry should have taught us that our internal conflicts are petty compared to the threat that faces us."

Breaking with a family tradition of public silence and neutrality that has lasted for more than six decades, Peridot Yaxley issued an announcement that the House of Yaxley considers themselves at Harry's service, with the exception of Indigena Yaxley, who decided to join You-Know-Who, and the twins Sylvan and Oaken, who also became Death Eaters and were killed in the fall of the school.

Lucius Malfoy, though still laboring under a shadow from his service to You-Know-Who, sent a letter in which he declared his confidence in both Harry Black and his heir Draco Malfoy and that, "If anyone can drive You-Know-Who from Britain's shores, it will be them."

However, others cited concerns originating in Acting Minister Erasmus Juniper's term in office, including the fact that Britain has been condemned for breaking the International Statute of Secrecy and its wizards could face sanctions when traveling to other countries—an especial concern now, when so many are considering flight to foreign wizarding communities.

"I think Black has our world's best interests at heart," said Hugh Johnson, a father of three from Wales, "but he simply doesn't have any idea how to serve them. The devastating losses in the past few weeks show that."

"Too young," agreed a witch who signed her letter only as Faustine. "We need to start thinking more about international guidance, and the way that Britain's actions reflect our reputation on the world stage. Letting Black lead alone will just solidify that reputation as a bad one in most eyes."

It remains to be seen whether the latest effort to build a wizarding government in Britain is stable or not…

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Zacharias shook the Floo powder and soot off his robes, and then inclined his head to his mother as he stepped away from the fireplace. She had come to wait for him without, of course, making it seem as if she were waiting for him. She rose to her feet with her hands clasped in front of her waist.

"You did not bring Hermione with you?" she asked then, eyebrows arching. "I would have thought she would want to spend Christmas with her fiancé's family."

Zacharias hid a chuckle. No need to voice the thought that it was a bad idea for Hermione and Miriam to meet in person just yet, as opposed to talking through owl post or the Floo connections. "She's incredibly involved in the process of setting up the new government," he said, kissing his mother's hand. "And, of course, waiting to see what progress reports I bring back from the Hope for Light."

Miriam nodded as if that was perfectly understandable, now that it was explained, and turned to lead him out of the receiving room. "Most of them are at least listening," she said. "The biggest problems come from those who want considerations and concessions now, and won't fight without at least the promise of them."

"Harry could promise them all he liked," Zacharias muttered. He knew the kinds of things his mother was talking about: powerful positions in a newly-opened Ministry, individual protection for important family assets that couldn't be moved out of Britain, guarantees that Dark wizards wouldn't have as much access to influence as the Light ones would. "That doesn't mean that he needs to keep the promises."

Miriam gave him a long look, then said, "I'm going to pretend you didn't say that, Zacharias. You know as well as I do that someone who makes his promises must keep them, or risk falling into the Dark's tactics."

Zacharias tilted his head up and smiled innocently at her. "But, Mother, Harry is undeclared. It's not the same as a Light wizard binding himself with oaths in the name of the allegiance we all serve. He can wag his tongue and not endanger his honor or his reputation. In the eyes of most people here, he doesn't have much honor, surely?"

Miriam hissed under her breath. "Being among Dark wizards has made you forget our ways, my son."

"No." Zacharias folded his arms and gave his mother a smug glance. "What it's taught me is that people are often more forgiving than they appear—or more careless. They might _say_ they'll only agree to fight with you for prices that you can't afford to pay, but in practice they'll usually grumble and agree to go along for some lesser offer. And that's particularly true in the face of a threat like Voldemort, whom they don't want to face alone even if they act like they do."

"I didn't teach you to haggle like a fishmonger, Zacharias." Miriam's eyes were slits.

"No, you didn't," Zacharias agreed calmly. "Hermione did. And when I saw, for the first time, how many people assumed she was a pureblood just because she knew the right words and wore the right clothes—well, I knew a truth you could have spent a hundred years trying to teach me in the Light way and I would never have learned, Mother." He considered changing that statement—after all, he was intelligent enough to learn anything he wanted to, truly—but Miriam didn't like him to harp constantly on his wits, so in the end he let it lie. "People _can_ be fooled by the surface. And if they're stupid enough to let themselves be fooled that way, then it's not the fault of the person offering. They'll go along with the polished surface and be happy. The person making the offer is happy, too, at having to pay less, and at having fooled them. And so everyone becomes joyful in more, well, flexible ways than the old, stiff-necked codes of honor allow."

"I am not so sure that it was a good idea to let you spend more time with the girl after all," his mother murmured, "if this is what comes out of it."

"You taught me politics," said Zacharias, lifting his head. "You taught me honor. You taught me the ancient magic that let me save Hermione's life in the battle at Midsummer. I will never forget that. But she taught me to live in the real world, Mother. Our training would only prepare us for that if _everyone_ followed the old dances, and they do not. The Dark wizards use different traditions, anyway, and the number of Muggleborns coming into the world means that, eventually, we won't be able to cow them any more, and we'll be left behind as they develop new ways of living. I want to have both power _and_ honor. That is what will insure the survival of what is pure and potent and good in our culture, not insisting that change never happened."

Miriam lingered where she was for a long moment, her eyes focused on him. Then she gave a little shake of her head, and said, "Well. That is certainly an impressive speech, Zacharias."

By that, she meant to convey that it wasn't at all, of course, but Zacharias did not care. He'd known what would happen when he came home, ostensibly for Christmas holidays but really to meet the Light families gathered at the Smith estate and finalize the bonds of their alliance with Harry. He'd spent a long time thinking and meditating on it, especially since there was little unique that he could contribute back at Silver-Mirror.

And he knew from the slight widening of his mother's eyes that she was truly impressed.

He gave her a smile as small as the shake of her head had been, and then turned towards the formal doors of the Smith Great Hall. "Shall we show them what world we represent now, Mother?"

SSSSSSSSSSS

Harry closed his eyes and put the letter gently aside. All it bore was a note of thanks from Luna's father, for letting him know of his daughter's death and how she had died. But it had affected Harry far more than any profound effusion or outpouring of blame could have. It reminded him that Mr. Lovegood really was all alone in the world now, and it made him blame himself for the death more.

"Why do you have tears in your eyes?"

Harry started and turned to look at the block of gray stone with the dragon's head projecting out of it, which sat on the other side of the table and watched him with bright, intelligent eyes like flecks of mica. The Stone was—interesting—in its attempts to understand the humans around it. It seemed concerned with morality and immorality above all things, and Harry had caught it in a long conversation with Thomas the other day about the differences between the Light and Dark, with the Stone listening like an eager pupil. Finally, Thomas appeared to have found the perfect audience for him, the one who wanted to hear as much as he wanted to tell.

"The letter made me sad," he said simply.

"But why?" The Stone's dragon head twisted, trying to see the parchment itself. "It concerns someone who's dead. Why do humans spend so much time thinking about the dead? Why not the living?"

Harry was not sure he was the best person to explain this, but he spread his hands and said, "Imagine that humans are all tied together by means of their emotions. Can you imagine that?"

"It is _true_," said the Stone, with a small amount of bewilderment in its voice. "There is no need to imagine it."

Harry nearly smiled, but the memory of Luna's death and the fact that the Stone might want to know this kind of thing for very important reasons kept the expression from his face. "Well. When a human dies, as long as someone loved her and was close to her, those connections remain. They're ripped and shredded the way that someone's guts are ripped and shredded when someone tries to disembowel her. They keep reaching out to the dead person, even though she's gone. Eventually, most people do come to care more about the living around them again, but it takes time, because those torn connections are so visible. Can you see that?"

The Stone hissed, a small amount of steam wafting past its teeth. "That does make more sense," it said after a moment. "But I wonder why some of you mourn more than others, and how you continue fighting for the living without tripping over the dangling guts of your grief."

"I don't think that anyone can give you the answer to that one," said Harry simply. "Because no one knows."

"I will ask Thomas. He knows everything else." The Stone grew sculptured wings that sprouted from its sides and flew away, swooping around the edge of the doorway and towards the library, where Thomas usually was.

Harry closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair for a moment. It was rare these days that he could simply be alone, without someone dashing in to ask his opinion on a solution or demand his help in a crisis. In fact, someone would probably appear now that he'd thought that.

But no one did for a little while, and that meant he could think, and think, and think.

Wonderful things had happened in the past few days. Hawthorn had arrived with a possible cure for lycanthropy, assuming they could fine-tune it so that it wouldn't be so deadly to anyone without an immense amount of magical strength and willpower—and even then, Harry wasn't sure if it would work for someone born a Muggle. The Stone had handed over several artifacts from the Department of Mysteries that Thomas was studying, so that he could best work them into more elaborate defenses for the safehouses. Dark and Light wizards were coming together in the face of disaster and striving to establish a wizarding government—though Harry supposed that might be for the purpose of arguing more conveniently than they could do in the present situation. Jing-Xi had had to depart, but she had told Harry that she planned to argue the Pact into submission with the help of her friends, and she had given him the good news about Voldemort not being able to harm anyone with his draining ability until the spring equinox. There was hope everywhere.

And then a single letter could come, and make him remember the dead.

Harry shook his head fiercely and rose to his feet. Yes, someone was probably on her way to interrupt him even now, but a message or a crisis could wait a few minutes. He had to get out of this house briefly, or he would go mad.

He lowered the wards for the instant it took him to Apparate outside, and, once there, he jumped to the cliffs of Cornwall and Cobley-by-the-Sea. Harry closed his eyes and listened to the Atlantic slamming again and again on the rocks far below. His breathing calmed, but he knew that meditation and simple relaxation wouldn't help much. If it could have, then his Occlumency and his slow slipping into sleep with Draco every night would have been enough.

He needed a magical release, and so he opened his eyes and sought it.

This time, he chose a white lightning bolt, if only in homage to the black lightning bolt of Midwinter night that no one but Draco had seen. He whirled it around his head, feeling it crackle with energy in his hand, magic that tingled and jolted up his arm but then met his natural defenses and slid away like a dog with its tail between its legs again. Then he tossed it away from him.

It writhed and danced in the air, and then broke apart into flakes like snow, though where they fell into the sea, they provided sparks of dazzling light instead of spots of cold. Harry sent his breath up in front of his face, and formed it into a small dragon in imitation of the Stone, which he tossed in several different directions before it found its wings. It squeaked indignantly at him and swooped down the cliffs in search of food and warmth.

His magic had increased since he'd ripped power away from Voldemort the night of the Hogwarts attack. What that meant, in practice, was that he was more restless and easily irritated than before, more prone to needing time to himself and to exercise his magic, and more drawn to the songs of Light and Dark that he could hear echoing just beyond the earth.

He still prayed never to become a Lord, never to think of himself as so superior to people that he would destroy them without a thought. But he could see now why some of them, like Kanerva, like Monika, were so utterly detached from the world around them. It was easy to think of the magic that seethed beneath his skin as the important thing when it was in every breath he drew.

_Not so. It never was so._

If he released it, like this, then he didn't have so much of it, and so he stopped thinking that way for a while. So he released ascending rings of white light, and turned the grass beneath his feet to glass so that the magic could have the pleasure of transfiguration, and breathed so hard in the direction of the ocean that the waves actually lifted and swayed to his breath.

Finally, Harry decided that enough time had passed, and Apparated back to Silver-Mirror. Regulus was waiting, patiently, to confer with Harry about whether they should accept representatives from groups claiming to be acting in "the public interest."

Harry was glad it was Regulus who found him. Of anyone in the house, he seemed the most congenial, the one most likely to hold off on snapping out of either impatience, preoccupation with his own problems, or genuine concern for Harry.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Snape did not find Regulus Black's presence congenial.

As usual, the man was doing no more than standing behind him while Snape brewed a potion, but that was quite enough. He stood, and he did not speak about inconsequential matters, which would have made him no worse than many a student chattering nervously about detention; nor did he make obvious coughs to announce his presence, which would have meant he wanted Snape's attention and Snape could easily deny it, and thus be in control. He stood and stared, and Snape knew the mind behind those eyes was working through a procession of thoughts that he did not like, did not approve of.

Finally, he could stand it no longer. He put down the vial of Veritaserum—which would be essential to the new government, deny it though Harry might—and turned to face Regulus. "Why are you here?" he asked sharply.

Regulus smiled at him. That caused Snape to falter. Regulus had retreated when questioned before this, or simply shook his head and gone on staring, as if Snape should know the reason and he wouldn't voice it. Now, the smile, and it was going to begin a conversation Snape did not want to have.

"You know the reason," said Regulus. "What I told you when the school was falling. I love you."

Snape closed his eyes. He would not say that he was nauseated, but that word came closest to describing what he was feeling: the swooping sensation in his belly, the hair standing up on the back of his neck, the desire to lunge forward and find a loo before he emptied the contents of his stomach.

"You cannot be," he said at last.

Regulus shrugged. Snape knew that, though he didn't open his eyes to see it. He knew Regulus so well he could predict his actions with his eyes shut, and he had never wanted to know anyone that well—at least, someone who was not Harry. "No one says that love has to have rules, Severus. And this love has been peculiar enough already, with the way I've felt it and the way I've pursued it and the obstacles that have tried to get in its way. I don't see why the object has to be normal."

It took Snape several tries before he could speak. During all of them, he kept his eyes firmly shut. "Regulus, you will do yourself an injury if you love me." He got the words out, though they clung to the sides of his throat like bread soaked with gravy. "We lead separate lives. You are the brother of the student who made me most miserable throughout my years of school. We were separated for fourteen years, and when you returned, you had a much younger body than mine. You _still_ do." It had not escaped his notice, though it seemed to have escaped Regulus's, that, physically, Regulus was twenty-two, while Snape himself was thirty-eight, very nearly. "We do not _know_ each other. Any love you have of me is based either on memories so old they are inevitably distorted by now, or on a fundamental misunderstanding of who we are in relation to one another. Especially of who I am."

"I know all the difficulties," said Regulus easily. "I don't care. I even know that you're jealous of me for Harry's taking Black as his last name. I don't care about that, either."

Snape opened his eyes. "I am not jealous."

And then he wished that he had had the sense not to look, because Regulus's gaze captured his, earnest and calm both at once, so deep a gray that Snape could almost forget Sirius Black had had the same eyes. He did not manage to glance away. He screamed about that, deep in the back of his mind.

Regulus murmured, "I wouldn't _expect_ much from you, Severus, other than acknowledgment. I anticipated this battle. I know it will take time. But I want your acknowledgment, and your pledge that you will not turn a cold shoulder to me, the way you have been." He waved a hand to encompass the time they'd been in Silver-Mirror since the attack on Hogwarts, never looking away from Snape.

"I cannot be who you wish me to be," said Snape flatly. "Not someone worthy of receiving love, nor capable of giving it."

"You seem to do just fine with Harry."

Snape took a deep breath. He trusted this man as a friend, at least, and he had never known Regulus to betray a confidence when they were both Death Eaters.

_Now who is speaking from distorted memories of a time dead and gone?_

But he pressed forward. It might be that, if he did voice the most powerful and nagging of the doubts that were trying to overcome him, Regulus would understand the futility of forcing the issue.

"Harry needed my help. He was younger than I, someone horribly abused, whom I could—save and rescue." And those words stuck in his craw even more than "love" had. "I did stupid things in the name of that love, and it was only a combination of good luck and his own compassionate nature that made him forgive me. The power dynamic between us was always tilted towards me."

And here came the words he did not want to speak, but had to, if Regulus was ever to understand why his quest to have Snape as a lover was hopeless.

"You are stronger than I am. You came through imprisonment and torture that would have stolen the sanity of most other men, and you are still sane. I cannot—I cannot stand for someone to have that type of control over me. I cannot have a lover who is stronger than I am."

He turned away, his cheeks so hot that he felt as if he had swallowed fireweed, and once again been preparing the Veritaserum.

Regulus said nothing for long moments. Snape strained his ears for some sound of the other man's going away, and told himself he was not.

Then arms closed around his middle, and Regulus's voice whispered in his ear, "I don't care."

Snape successfully kept himself from responding, because he was not capable of responding, not the way Regulus desired, but his despair and sickness increased, until he felt as if he fell down a long, dark pit, the bottom of which he could not see.

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

It was a rushed and hurried Christmas, in Draco's eyes, but in the wake of the Hogwarts attack, it was hard to see how it could have been anything else.

Gifts had been left behind in their mad flight, and they had had no time to make or procure more, with the frantic hurry to set up a new government that had taken over Silver-Mirror in the past few days. Christmas mostly meant a slightly richer meal than normal, with more people sitting at the table instead of scurrying off to eat hastily in their own corners while they read books of law or drafted letters or spoke via the phoenix song spell to other people, and a chance to see his father.

Draco didn't know why he had expected to find Lucius _affected_ by the news of the Hogwarts disaster. Of course he would not be. His own son and heir was among the survivors, and he was now perfectly positioned to craft the kind of life that would make people forget his villainy: advising said son and heir and, through him, the Boy-Who-Lived.

The fact that Draco never intended to let his father manipulate him again was somewhat beside the point, really. Lucius still intended to try. Draco knew that from the gentle smile he received, and the gift his father gave him without even a comment to prepare him. Draco drew back the blue cloth from a small object and saw there a miniature of his mother.

The picture was unmoving; presumably, it had been a portrait done immediately after or before her marriage to Lucius, because it was still a custom to present a new bride or groom like that, in the full blush of that beauty and happiness that would never come again, unchanged even by movement. His mother wasn't smiling, and her blonde hair was coiled closely around her neck, and her blue eyes were bright with something Draco would not have called happiness. But there was still something _radiant_ about Narcissa, like the light shining on ice. Nothing could diminish it, not even her death, and not even the circumstances of the gift.

And not even the fact that his father had almost certainly handed it to him intending to shock him and see how much he still grieved for Narcissa.

Draco looked up and faced his father with his calmest, coolest, most unmoving gaze. "Thank you, Lucius," he said, without any emotion at all, and then turned to seek out Harry.

He could feel Lucius's eyes on his back, and his father puzzling out why that had not worked the way he wanted it to. He didn't look around. He was not about to give the bastard the satisfaction.

Carefully, with hands that did not sake, he threaded the miniature around his neck on its ribbon. According to ancient tradition, he should be wearing Harry's portrait there already, and not his mother's, but also, according to tradition, his father should never have let the portrait out of his sight.

_If he wishes to play games, he should know that his opponent can cheat just as well as he can._

Draco stood near Harry, because he had to. Harry was hugging his brother at the moment, and chatting amiably enough with his girlfriend. Parvati still irritated Draco, with her automatic assumptions that no one Dark was really good enough to be Harry's boyfriend, but though she met his eyes and frowned, she didn't offer any insults. That was enough to make Draco be quiet in his turn.

He watched Professor Snape and Regulus Black stand on the other side of the room, and pointedly not talk to each other. He shook his head. Snape reminded him of Harry, sometimes, in his determination to ignore the consequences of someone else's feelings for him. That just meant that Regulus should be more like Draco, of course, and Draco could do nothing to help him if he refused to be.

Zacharias Smith and Hermione Granger stood in another corner, heads close together, talking about something that seemed to require a hundred hand gestures. Draco snorted to himself. The Light part of their alliance was slowly but surely coming together, and he had to give Smith credit for a good portion of that, as well as the influence of Granger, who kept him sane and rational.

Weasley—the girl—was looking flustered as she carried food back and forth from the table to the kitchen. Apparently she'd had a screaming match with her parents earlier over her decision not to leave Silver-Mirror. Draco was sorry for missing it.

Augusta Longbottom held court at the feasting table; she'd not come to retrieve her grandson after all, but to stay and help with the establishment of the new government. She wore no glamour. Draco saw more than one nervous glance darted at her and the spots covering her skin, but if the Longbottom matriarch noticed them, she clearly did not care. She was much more interested in speaking to the people who had come to her and actually wanted to know more about half-human wizards and witches.

Hawthorn Parkinson watched Lucius with a gaze that made Draco nervous, even though her eyes were no longer amber. He was almost certain she wouldn't take revenge on him as long as that could harm the war effort. But no one had spoken about what might happen after the war.

Padma Patil stood with her head bowed, shivering, against the wall. Draco felt his mouth tighten in exasperation. It was sad that her girlfriend had died, but she was being no use to anyone here, too caught up in her mourning. It might be best for her if her parents came and took her home, as they had been asking to do.

He caught the eye of one person he didn't want to see at all: Michael Rosier-Henlin, leaning next to his twin. Michael stared at him with a hungry gaze for a moment, and then averted his face. Draco scowled. He didn't care what Harry said about the brat having changed since his burn and his awakening. He had not changed, in Draco's opinion, but simply learned to bury the things that made him objectionable. They would still come out in a time of peace.

But, as always, Draco's gaze returned to Harry: the center of it all—_his_ center, at least—and the one person without whom they truly could not go on. He reached out and rested one hand on Harry's wrist, squeezing it.

Harry turned to look at him only briefly before continuing his conversation with his twin. But his hand turned and squeezed Draco's fingers back, lingeringly, in the way that said they would share a bed tonight with more passion and attention than Harry had been able to spare since the escape from Hogwarts.

Draco settled back, satisfied, to continue observing the antics of people more stupid or less informed than he was. That made quite a large number of the souls in the room, given the wonder of who he was.


	72. A Parting of Ways

**Chapter Fifty-Eight: A Parting of Ways**

"It's _not_ neutral ground."

Harry sighed and waved the letter around in front of his face. In truth, he hardly needed to cool himself off; not even the wards around Silver-Mirror could keep off some of the December chill, and the fire had sunk, since it had been some hours since he built it up. He slid off the chair to do that now, and watched as the flames blazed, and tried to tell himself that he didn't miss being able to blaze with them.

"I don't really care if it is or not," he told the fire. "Minister Gansweider agreed to meet there, and she's the trusted representative for the International Confederation of Warlocks. So we'll go to the Isle of Man, and meet with her in Paton Opalline's home, and hope that we can settle this ridiculous conflict over the International Statute."

"Harry." Draco came and dropped to his heels beside him. His voice was harsh enough that it seemed set to scrape all the enamel off Harry's teeth. "I just want you to reconsider accepting her offer. It could be a trap. She wouldn't have any good reason to be well-disposed towards you. She met with Juniper, remember? And she shares a country with Monika. Why would you do this?"

"The message from the Confederation was official," said Harry, clinging to his temper. Draco had been trying to talk him out of meeting with Minister Gansweider for the past two days, and every single time he brought up the same points, as if Harry had not thought of those himself even as he considered Gansweider's first letter. Harry hated being treated as if he were stupid when he'd done nothing to warrant it. "They endorse this. And if she attacked me in the home of my allies, I'm sure the Opallines would have something to say about that."

"You can't be sure that they'd be able to prevent injury to you in time," Draco pointed out.

Harry jerked himself to his feet and turned furious eyes on Draco, who actually blinked and seemed to realize, for the first time, that Harry was angry. And he _was_. He could feel his magic hammering like wings around his heart, snarling like a dog on a leash, eager to be let out and attack Draco.

He was not to _that_ point of losing control yet, thank Merlin, and he managed to restrain himself to a tight, "I don't want to talk about this further, Draco. I've already agreed to the meeting, and I'll be taking guards along, and I'll have dozens more there with me. This dispute with the Confederation needs to be _settled_ if at all possible. I don't _want_ to have it hanging over my head when we're trying to fight Voldemort. And you know that some people are only holding back on supporting the Hope for Light or the Alliance of Sun and Shadow because they're afraid, rightly, of what the international wizarding community could do to us. Settling this benefits everyone involved."

"I worry about you," Draco said softly.

There was a time when Harry's guilt at the hurt in his eyes would have made him apologize at once. Now, he mostly resented the fact that Draco made him feel guilty at all, and the resentment fed the anger.

"I know that," said Harry. "You've made it abundantly clear. And instead of accepting my decision or bringing up new reasons to worry, you keep making the same points again and again, as if I weren't intelligent enough to figure them out on my own. If you can't contribute in a _new_ way to the war effort, Draco, please at least refrain from repeating things like this."

And then he turned away, because one more moment there, and he knew he _would_ attack Draco.

He didn't want to leave the house, even in as bad a mood as he was in, because he knew that Draco would send people after him. So he opened the door that led to one of the Black wonders kept safely hidden in Silver-Mirror, the wind-pool for which the house was named. He stepped onto the balcony that led out over the pool and stared down.

It looked the same as it had the first time he saw it—almost. There was still the silver-blue-white vortex of circling wind, leading to no bottom, and the birds of varied shapes and sizes riding and diving and plunging and playing in it. But now he could see the walls of the magic that formed the pool, containing it, and shivering with a sensual awareness of air that resembled, in some ways, the alien intelligence of the Stone and the Maze.

Harry closed his eyes and leaned his head on his hands. His magic continued responding to the walls of the pool, though, and wrapped him in a cool breeze when one of the birds veered close to him, curious to see what he was.

Being near immense sources of magic soothed his own magic, when he could think of nothing else that would calm it. But Harry hadn't missed how his restlessness continued to increase.

His magic wanted to be _doing_ things again, not simply remaining in Silver-Mirror and organizing the new government, as necessary as that was.

Well, when they went to Gollrish Y Thie, it would have something to do. Harry was almost hoping that the Minister of Austria _would_ try something, unlikely as that seemed and as much of an international mess as she would make. Then his magic could be used and, afterwards, lie dormant again, instead of quivering around him like wings, ready to spread every single time someone startled or irritated him.

At least they were going to travel. There was that.

SSSSSSSSSSS

Draco shut the door to the room of the wind-pool quietly. He had intended to go in and confront Harry, but judging from Harry's slumped shoulders and the way they shook, now wasn't the best time.

He hadn't meant to be unproductive or obstructive by bringing up those points about the Minister, he thought resentfully as he leaned back against the wall and shut his eyes. He'd only meant to emphasize things that Harry seemed to be ignoring. Why had Harry immediately decided that _he_ should be the one to attend this meeting and explain the new government to the Confederation and its representative, for example? Someone else could have gone and done it. That would leave Harry safely out of danger, show Minister Gansweider exactly how important she was in the grand scheme of things, and give honor and prestige to one of Harry's followers who wanted it.

Merlin, Draco would have liked to do it himself.

At least the Opallines, Minister Gansweider, and Harry had all agreed on the Isle of Man as a meeting place, but Draco still didn't think it was neutral ground. And he wondered if the Minister of Austria hadn't intended some insult to Harry, wanting to meet in a house that she _had_ to know was built of the bones of a dead dragon. Harry wouldn't think to look for that kind of gesture, but to Draco, it was like breathing.

He would be with Harry. He could make sure that nothing happened to him.

_And that has been so effective before, _his conscience jibed at him.

Draco shook his head and straightened up with a frown. They were meeting Minister Gansweider on New Year's Day. That left him some time to plan, and to ask Snape to have potions on hand just in case of an accident.

Whether that accident happened to Harry or was caused by them once they saw the Minister start behaving in a threatening way—as Draco was sure would happen—Draco wanted to be prepared.

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

Evamaria came in to the Isle in a carriage drawn by swans. Lady Monika had insisted. She had bred the birds to be impressive, with wingspans more than twenty feet wide and beaks lined with razor-sharp teeth and webbed feet edged with cruel claws and black feathers that smelled of jasmine, and she said this would lay a mark on the minds of their enemies that just Apparating in couldn't.

Evamaria had agreed with that, but she wished she had known how long the flight from Austria to the Isle of Man was likely to be, how cold, and how lonely. It gave her too much time to think, for one thing.

Her hands clasped two treasures in her lap, representing her opposite purposes for being here. One was a ball of colored glass that would allow the International Confederation of Warlocks to listen to any words spoken during the meeting, so that they would know Evamaria and Harry were not trying to cheat them and reach some private agreement between Austria and Britain which would still contravene the International Statute. The other was an earring that she would don when the swans began their descent to the Isle. It linked her mind intimately to her Lady's, which let her know what Monika thought of the meeting and told her how to direct her words. Neither had been created with magic known in Britain, so the sense that anyone would notice and guess the purpose of the devices was slim.

Slim, but not nonexistent, and in the meantime Evamaria had to dance between the requirements of the Confederation, which mostly wanted a timeline for the war and the British wizards to stop revealing themselves to Muggles, and her Lady, who wanted to see if there was a chance she could steal Harry's magic.

Evamaria sighed and leaned back against the side of the carriage. It resembled a sled in form, silver covered with curlicues of white wood, created by the miners that Monika had bred to serve her out of rats. And the four swans that flew in front of it, pulling it along with flap after flap of their wings, were beautiful, that was certain, as long as one didn't look too closely at their beaks and feet. Such a deep black, darker than Evamaria's hair, darker even than Monika's, with some of the dusky sheen of blueberries.

She hated her divided allegiance sometimes, the struggle to do right by her country while keeping her Lady happy. And certainly the people in the International Confederation lucky enough to come from nations where Lord-level wizards didn't make their homes didn't understand her position. They seemed to think that she should defy Monika and end up a breeder if she needed to, just to support some of the Confederation's inflexible decisions.

In reality, Evamaria engaged in a delicate balancing act, and she had known from the moment she became Minister that it would probably cost her her life, unless she was lucky enough to lose the next election. It was what one _did_, a tradition in Austria since Monika had risen to full power. She should have been killed while she was still a girl, not yet in control of herself, but she had escaped the hunters too long, and then given herself to the Dark, and then it was all over.

But Evamaria would do what she had to do, make the compromises that were required, and if that made her less "pure" and "good" than some of the simpletons in the Confederation, she must live with it.

The carriage began to curve down, and she could see the sea between Britain and Ireland gleaming now, and the large house made of dragon's bones on it. Evamaria shook her head as she clipped the earring, a bright boss of pearl and silver, on. The Opalline family had apparently been revealing themselves to the Muggles on their island. The Prime Minister of the Muggle United Kingdom had so far prevented the media from reporting on the story, and the local Muggles remained convinced—most of them—that it was some huge, elaborate conspiracy or joke of a magician.

Apparently.

Evamaria thought it a bit strange that no one had questioned the Opallines beyond that, but then, she had learned long ago never to overestimate the intelligence of Muggles.

"_You are almost landed,_" Monika murmured into her ear. Evamaria was uncertain if she had overheard her thoughts, or was linked to the swans and so could track their movements in some uncanny way.

"Yes, my Lady," Evamaria said, as the swans circled the dragon-house once and then sought for a landing place on the other side, on the slopes of Snaefell. Monika had assured her that they would know how to find one, that she need not guide them.

"_Serve me well._"

Evamaria nodded in resignation. That was her life, truly, a study in resignation and doing the best she could.

Monika was aware of all the potentially rebellious thoughts that raced through her Minister's head, she knew. But they didn't matter. Monika did not _have_ to do anything about them. She was always in control.

Evamaria set herself to endure.

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry stared at the swans as they came down. They were beautiful creatures, and even if their eyes did, from a distance at least, blaze scarlet like Voldemort's or like hot coals, he couldn't help but admire them.

They were also wound with webs.

Harry bowed his head and did his best to pretend that he hadn't noticed. Yes, he had to free all the creatures bound by webs, but he didn't have to do it _now_. And trying to unbind the swans would only cause an international incident, given that the Austrian Minister would have to find another way to get home. And interfering with Monika's magic would probably give her an excuse to strike at him.

Still, the need to unbind the webs itched and burned at him.

To pass the time and distract himself, he took one more glance around, to make sure that everyone was in the proper place. Paton and Calibrid stood with him, one on either side, since it was their home and they would be the ones who would welcome an international visitor to Gollrish Y Thie under ordinary circumstances. That made a neat excuse to keep Snape, Draco, and the others back.

He did have Connor with him, at his right shoulder. It would be a good learning experience for him, Harry thought firmly. His brother was an adult, legally, and in normal times would have been forming contacts among other Light wizards, learning how to function in the world as the heir of Lux Aeterna, and what it meant that he was of Potter heritage but a halfblood. It hadn't happened so far, and given that Connor was more interested in ordinary life than politics, Harry could hardly blame him, but no time was like the present to learn.

He ignored the thought that he might just have wanted someone to suffer along with him.

The carriage landed on the doorstep of Gollrish Y Thie, near the dragon's gaping jaws. Calibrid straightened a little. Harry gave her a warning glance. After he had explained the way that Monika tended to treat the people bound to her, she had been eager to contact her relatives who lived in Austria and do what she could to make the Dark Lady's life difficult. She had backed down on the plan, especially when she found out that Monika wasn't the one visiting them that day, but she still seemed primed to cause an incident if Harry wasn't careful.

Paton, luckily, was the calm counterpart to his daughter, as always, and he stepped forward as Evamaria Gansweider alighted from the carriage, catching her hand and helping her over the ice-rimed stones that Harry remembered negotiating so carefully the first time he'd visited Gollrish Y Thie two years ago. He said something Harry couldn't catch, but which made Evamaria jerk her head up and look at him.

"I had no idea that you knew German," she murmured in English, sounding hesitant.

Paton smiled, and bowed over her hand for a moment, then finished leading her up to the doorstep before he responded. "I traveled on the Continent for a year before I returned home," he said calmly. "All the heirs of my family do so. It seemed imperative to learn at least _some_ of the tongue of each country where I have relatives—and those are a formidable number, as I suspect you know."

"Old Blood," said Evamaria, and Harry had to change his initial impression of her. Her eyes might not be the most vibrant in the world—in fact, they were haunted with shadows of an old pain which he found disturbing—but her face could light up when she took an interest in something, as she was evidently doing now. "I had no idea that you extended it so far, from simply knowing and controlling your family to becoming involved with the lands where they lived."

"We have many things to do with our time, since we do not make war," said Paton, and then bowed to her. "Welcome to Gollrish Y Thie, Minister Gansweider, and our home. My name is Paton Opalline, and this is my daughter and heir, Calibrid." Calibrid made a little curtsey, though Harry could see her eyes daring Evamaria to comment on the fact that she had no magic of her own. Evamaria chose not to comment, but then, if she were at all politically astute, she would have known that before she came. "And this is Harry Black, once Harry Potter, _vates_ and adopted son of the Opalline family and Severus Snape, whom you came to see."

Evamaria turned towards him, a motion so swift that it made the heavy earring in her right ear sway, and then came to a stop. Harry found himself studied in a way he didn't enjoy. That gaze said this woman had dealt with powerful wizards before, and had disliked it every single time. Just by means of their power, they were to be feared, avoided when possible, placated when necessary.

With a start, Harry realized the gaze had been so deep and long that he'd passed the surface of her mind and started reading her thoughts. He lowered his eyes at the same moment as Evamaria averted her face sharply.

"My apologies, Madam," Harry murmured. He had no idea what attitudes towards Legilimency were in Austria, but it was still a _faux pas_ for one leader to make when meeting with another at a politically delicate moment. "My name is Harry, and I would prefer that you call me that to all the titles in the world." Perhaps that would reassure her that he wasn't like other powerful wizards, to be feared and avoided. Of course, a touch of that idea was probably helpful to a Minister—Scrimgeour had had it—but it would do no good if it crippled their interaction.

Evamaria sighed. "And yet, you meet me with an army at your back," she said, and Harry lifted his head in time to see her gesture at his friends and family with a languid hand that nevertheless shook a little. "Is this the way to do things, Harry?" She paused as if anticipating that he would strike when she spoke his name, but relaxed and went on when he didn't. "If you trust me, at least, and it seems as if you would like me to trust you."

"My apologies," Harry said, and stood straighter and made his voice cool. He wouldn't let his desire to make her comfortable drive him into a moment of weakness that could cost Britain or the Opallines—or him—greatly. "But I thought it best, since I did not know if you came under the Confederation's aegis or Monika's."

Evamaria winced; if he hadn't known better, Harry would have sworn that her earring had stung her. But when he concentrated on it, he received no feeling of familiar magic. It seemed to have been enchanted to look pretty, and no more.

"I come under the aegis of both, always," said Evamaria, "since I am a member of the one and live in the same country as the other. What and who do you represent, Harry? The whole of your country? Or only a small and select group of wizards, this Alliance of Sun and Shadow I have heard about?"

"The Alliance is made of my main supporters, that is true," said Harry, as clearly as he could. He really _didn't_ want to frighten her, so he tried to make his voice truthful, neutral. "But many more have joined us, and others may join us depending on the outcome of this meeting. The whole of the country does not support me, of course. Juniper did not, and some people who are afraid of me don't, and Voldemort and his followers are a long way away from doing it."

Evamaria gave a bleak smile at the last statement. "Of course not," she murmured. "But if you make a promise today, you will do your best to see that the whole of the country follows it?"

"Yes," said Harry. "At least, if it concerns international law. I will not promise to lie down and bare my throat to your Lady if she comes hunting me. I have my people to defend and my work to do."

Evamaria nodded slightly. "And you consider the war with Voldemort to be your most important priority?"

"No."

Harry heard several gasps behind him. He was sure that he would see Snape scowling if he looked, probably thinking that he shouldn't have said that. But he ignored it, and held Evamaria's eyes, and tried to speak to her the way one Minister would speak to another. At least, the way he thought one Minister should speak to another. Pureblood dances often did not extend across national boundaries and it was not as though Harry had spied on the Confederation's meetings.

"My first priority is making sure my country thrives," he said. "So I am rebuilding the government, and trying to get those to safety who wish to go, and trying to make an accurate tally of the dead and missing from Hogwarts. I will fight the war, yes, but I will not allow Voldemort to ravage my people in the meantime."

Evamaria gave him a wistful look. Harry wondered if she was thinking about what she would do under similar circumstances, if Monika was ravaging Austria, or if it was a simple glance of kinship between two people confronted with powerful and greedy Dark wizards.

"I can understand that," she said. "And certainly the Confederation does not wish to see Lord Riddle reach beyond these shores." She hesitated a moment, then added carefully, "Nor does my Lady's Pact."

"They don't act like it," Connor muttered.

Evamaria chose to ignore that, even if she heard it, which Harry hoped wasn't the case. "But that doesn't mean that they want to continue to expose the British wizarding world to Muggles either, Harry, and so perhaps encourage the hostility of Muggles all over the world. Perhaps you can handle relations amicably here. It will be less the case in countries where no single powerful leader like you exists, or where the Muggles may be more prone to violence."

Harry nodded. It had been what he thought Evamaria would say, and in a certain light, he could even see the sense of it. So he had thought up a compromise which was not perfect, but sounded good. _The Pact and the International Confederation of Warlocks ought to find it perfect, _he thought.

"I will ask my people to restrain their efforts in front of Muggles until the war is over," he said. "We do not need to be hunted on two fronts, by Voldemort and by British Muggles who may become horrified when they find out how far our world extends, and what we have suffered."

Evamaria cocked her head. "Do you have a good idea of when the war will be over?"

Harry met her eyes and shook his head. He thought it not beyond the realm of possibility that the Confederation had sent her with some device that could hear what they said, even though he couldn't sense any magic like that on her. And of course there were always Pensieves so that they could listen to what he'd said later. So he was not about to reveal anything concerning the Horcruxes. "It could be weeks. It could be months, or years. I certainly hope it does not take the latter period of time, but it might."

Evamaria considered for a moment. Harry could tell that she was liking the solution more and more as she thought about it. It required no great sacrifice on the part of anyone outside Britain, and it delayed the resolution of the problem for a while, during which the politicians could take a breath, not confront a Lord-level wizard, and pretend to be doing something solid.

For Harry, it would pull the Confederation off his back, insure safe travel to the Continent for those who needed it, and deprive his enemies of one weapon they might use against him. Yes, he would have to take up the problem again soon enough, but at least it was not one that he needed to deal with right _now._

"The Confederation will like this," Evamaria said at last. "Yes, Harry, I believe that we might have found a solution." She held out her hand.

Calibrid cleared her throat.

Harry turned towards her. His heart beat wildly in his throat, but, oddly enough, his head was calm. He had thought this might be a problem from the moment he'd decided on the solution, but he had wanted to wait and see if it would. And now it seemed it would, from the way that Calibrid was looking at him.

"I think Muggles need to be a part of our world," she said. "And if we put that off, it becomes easier and easier to do so. There might never come a day when we can be as open as we've tried to be in the past few months with the Muggles on our island. And you know that our kindred all over Europe are revealing themselves to Muggles, though those countries have functional Ministries that can and do _Obliviate_ most memories. We are not willing to stop, Harry. Nor will the Opallines accept a declaration that applies only to Britain."

"And neither will you," Harry said, already understanding that. "Even though you live in Britain."

Calibrid shook her head, eyes ablaze with clear light. "It's nothing against you specifically, Harry," she said. "But we cannot abide by this agreement, even though I understand that you have excellent reasons for making it." She paused for a long moment, then said, very gently, "And you know that we cannot directly join in nor care for the war, since we are Old Blood and sworn to peace."

"I know," said Harry. The Opallines had been useful as a spy network, but the only one who had ever fought directly for him was Fergus Opalline, who had become a werewolf and so, in his family's eyes, was driven to savagery and violence by things that weren't his fault.

"Has the time come for a parting of ways?" There was sadness in Calibrid's voice, but also determination.

"It seems so." Harry held his hand out. "At least it's an amicable one." He waited, watching her, and then added, "At least, it's come unless you wish to change your mind and your methods about Muggle integration into the wizarding world."

"No. We've kept magic and wonder from them for too long. It's time to let them know it still exists." Calibrid took his hand, and held it for long moments before letting it go. "My father and I have discussed this, and he has at last come around to my way of thinking. We must withdraw ourselves from the Alliance, as we would inevitably betray you."

Paton cleared his throat. "None of this stops you from being an adopted son of the Opalline family, Harry. Never think that. We would like to see you here from time to time, and if you need assistance from us that does not relate to concealing ourselves from Muggles, then feel free to request it."

"I will," Harry said quietly. "Thank you."

"The Confederation will not be entirely satisfied with this," Evamaria said thoughtfully. "On the other hand, I cannot say I am surprised, or that no one anticipated this outcome." She nodded to Harry, and produced a blank scroll of parchment from her pocket. "If you will fill this with a description of our agreement, and sign it, I will sign it as well, and we can come to an end of this matter."

"For now," Harry said, holding her shadowed eyes and wondering if he would see them across a battlefield one day.

The Austrian Minister nodded. "For now."

SSSSSSSSSSS

Evamaria leaned against the back of her swan-carriage as it rose into the air again, sighing. She had done relatively little, but she was exhausted in any case. Being so near a powerful wizard induced headaches in her.

"_Does that include me_?" Monika's voice murmured in her ear, and then Evamaria heard laughter. Of course it did, and her Lady knew that.

With gratitude, Evamaria removed the earring and laid it in her lap. The swan-carriage was bound for the island in the Atlantic where the Confederation's leaders were currently meeting, so that Evamaria could hand the scroll with the agreement directly to them and survive another interrogation. She would have a long day yet, longer still as the swans carried her back and forth across waters and lands where the sun still shone.

It didn't matter, though. Evamaria would rather face a dozen interrogations then spend a dozen minutes in the presence of a Lord-level wizard.

They ruled too much, imposed too many choices, and did not know enough about free will. She wished for a world without them.


	73. Resistance

**Warning: Cliffhanger.**

**Chapter Fifty-Nine: Resistance**

"Indigena."

She was not sure whether she had grown to hate or love the way he whispered her name, as if it were a revelation. She told herself it was simply that he had no other name to whisper, and it was either her he must converse with, or the young basilisks who had finally hatched and begun to crawl about the burrow—and if they had names, they were in Parseltongue, which Indigena had never succeeded in understanding. She wiped the dirt off her hands and descended into the burrow, turning towards the throne room.

To her surprise, though, he wasn't there, lying on the pallet in the corner the way he usually did. Instead, Indigena found her Lord near the warm cave where the basilisks had hatched. He was scratching one of them, the one with the swaying red plume of the male, under the chin. The female lay nearby with her golden eyes firmly shielded by the false eyelids, or Indigena would not have dared to approach so close.

"My Lord?" she asked.

He turned to face her, and she could make out amusement in the sharp lines around his mouth, and the way his lips parted and the forked tongue flickered between them.

"I have found a way," he said.

It took her a moment to understood what he was talking about, and when he did, her heart beat considerably faster. A way around the wild Dark's ban, a way to attack Harry indirectly. Of course, the plan he hatched each time he lay on his pallet and shut his eyes was also a way to do that, but it would take a long time, and probably not be fruitful before the spring equinox in any case. Indigena knew her Lord's impatience to take a shorter route.

She crouched down in front of him and murmured, "Tell me."

"I have seen many things that Harry does not know I have seen." Her Lord now scratched the basilisk's chin with one hand and stroked its plume with the others, and it gave a deep, rumbling sound like a purr that Indigena had not known serpents could make. Voldemort hissed at it, and it hissed back, the sounds slipping and slurring and making Indigena shiver with an ancestral, nameless fear. "And what he goes through now is what I went through when I was young, not long after I had left Hogwarts. His magic is restless. Acting up. It needs to be fed, and Harry is not feeding it."

Indigena frowned. _That seems like a stupid thing to do. _"Are you sure he's not holding off and trying to bait you into a trap, my Lord?" she asked aloud.

"No." Voldemort laughed again, and the female basilisk hissed as if to echo him, the sound trilling up and down the scale. "In this case, he does not know the magic should be fed, and even if he knew, he would try to resist the idea. It needs blood, death, and hatred. And can you see my heir settling for such things, even if he wished to offer his power a meal?"

Indigena shook her head ruefully. Harry might have changed since the war began—the convoluted plan he'd enacted to fool the wild Dark showed that—but his morals were still not flexible enough to let him do what her Lord described. "I can't see it, my Lord."

"And neither will he," Voldemort said, voice singing and smug. "Past a certain point, a Lord's magic begins to demand food. Blood and hatred and kills are the things that feed it most effectively, though it can be fed with constant use in the name of compassion." Voldemort's voice deadened on the last word. "That is the point at which most of us Declare for Dark or Light. A Declared Lord or Lady does not need to feed the magic, because it has a connection with something greater than itself—which is really what it is hungering for, more greatness than confinement in a single body can afford it. But Harry will not Declare, and he will not kill, and he has used his magic little in the name of his—_compassion­_—in the last little while, though it has increased since Hogwarts. His magic is pushing him more and more. He can control it now, but he will reach a tipping point where he must kill, Declare, or die."

"I have never heard of that, my Lord," Indigena murmured. Of course, she hadn't made a study of Lord-level wizards, but Voldemort had never mentioned it before, either, and that seemed like a confidence he would have shared with her during the ten months she cared for him.

"The lives of the powerful are mysterious and little-known to the weak." Voldemort scratched the male basilisk's chin again, then reached down and grasped its throat, nearly choking it to death before letting it go. The young serpent put his head down tamely near her Lord's feet. "But one can see it in the fading that we do, if we do not die, becoming part of the paths of Light or Dark at last. I will not suffer that fate, as I will not die."

Indigena said nothing, keeping her eyes on her hands.

"But we have a yearning, all of us, to be closer to the forces of magic in the world, and those forces call us, the Light and the Dark, attracted to the power we carry and wanting it to be part of them. The Declaration stills the yearning for a while, but at last even that is not enough. Hence the fading." Voldemort's eyes burned and rolled over, balls of flame that altered with his moods. "Harry has no one to explain this yearning to him. Until recently, he was not strong enough to near the point where it would be important. But since Hogwarts…"

He let his voice trail off, but Indigena understood. Harry had swallowed magic from Voldemort, and the attempt to make his enemy weaker was now the very thing that would doom him.

"So you will lure him nearer, my Lord, and then try to push him past his tipping point?" she asked.

"Yes." Voldemort's hand rose and fell on the basilisk's back in steady strokes. "I cannot drain, according to the wild Dark." Indigena shivered with the force of the hatred in those few simple words. "I cannot act against Harry." Pale fingers spidered across blue-black scales. "But my pets can create a situation to which he _must_ come. And if he uses his _absorbere_ gift, if he drains, his choices are two: Declare or begin killing to feed his magic. And either way, he may then be destroyed."

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry turned over, and ended up staring at the ceiling. He stifled a sigh as Draco shifted next to him. They were sleeping in the same bed again, after a few nights of not doing so because of his anger at Draco, but now Harry found himself wishing the separation could have lasted longer. His insomnia had no component of guilt when he was alone.

His magic pooled and danced under his skin, poking him with sharp sticks beneath the ribs, insisting that he be up and doing something. Harry had hoped that visiting the Opallines would do it, but that hadn't helped. Nor had going to the cliffs above Cornwall and releasing it in random but harmless acts of power. Harry had no idea what it _wanted_ at this point, and the bird hadn't appeared to scar him and screech disapprovingly at him, either.

Harry slipped out of bed at last, and made his way down the stairs towards Silver-Mirror's kitchen. At least he could get something to eat. Sometimes the magic quieted in the wake of food, as if it had to analyze this new presence in his body. But it often returned stronger and livelier in a short time, energized by the meal the way that swallowing magic sent his power to new heights.

Harry was willing to deal with the extra restlessness if it happened. Mostly, he just wanted a few hours of calm, restful sleep.

A light on in the kitchen, though, told him that he wasn't the only one awake. Harry paused near the doorway and watched the bobbing _Lumos_ charm, wondering if it was someone he could reveal himself to without trouble.

Then the charm came closer, and showed Snape's face, and Harry wove the _Extabesco plene_ around himself, vanishing from Snape's every sense. The only worse person to know about this strange condition he had would be Draco.

And Snape wasn't alone, either. Harry blinked as Regulus's voice said from behind Snape, "Severus? Are you sure you only want a sandwich? You were brewing in your lab all day, and I hadn't thought you came out for lunch or dinner."

"I'm not hungry, _Mother._"

Harry's eyebrows climbed. Snape's voice was vicious and mocking, not the kind of tone that Harry would have expected him to use to Regulus at all. And now he accepted the sandwich that Regulus came up and handed him with bad grace, a glare and then a turning away that was obviously meant to dismiss Regulus's existence from his mind.

Regulus either didn't mind or had expected this. His voice was warm, filled with tolerant humor, as he replied. "You know that I don't love you like a mother, Severus. I _especially_ don't love you the way _your_ mother did. So stop with the excuses." He hopped up on the table and sat there the way that Harry had often seen Sirius sit on the table in the kitchen at Godric's Hollow, swinging his legs as he ate. Harry felt a sting at his eyes, and quickly glanced away.

He heard Snape's voice when he replied, though, his voice bleeding out as though a chunk of broken glass had stuck in his throat. "When will you believe, Regulus, that your love for me is impossible?"

"When I stop feeling it," Regulus answered through a mouthful of crumbs. Harry heard him licking his fingers, and could just imagine the sneer on Snape's face. "Until then, eat up, dear."

Snape snarled. "I find that I am not hungry after all," he announced. Harry glanced back to see him walking towards the door of the kitchen.

Regulus waved his wand lazily, and a shimmering barrier sprang up in front of Snape, stopping him. Snape folded his arms. Harry wondered if he was the only one who saw his fingers writhe into the cloth along his limbs, as if he were cold, and clutch so hard that the knuckles turned white and the fabric tore. His voice still had the sound of hatred when he replied, though, which Harry supposed was a successful attempt at self-control—better than spinning around and hexing Regulus, at any rate.

"I will thank you to let me go."

"No, you won't," said Regulus, still around the mouthful of his sandwich. "You've never thanked anyone for anything much, even when it saved your life or your sanity." He leaned forward, and Harry saw his eyes shining with a clear, determined light. He was not near to tears, though with the words he spoke next, Harry would not have blamed him if he were. "We mattered to each other as Death Eaters, Severus. We experienced far darker things then than we have in this war. Why won't you admit that we mean at least as much to each other now as we did then?"

"Now is _not_ then," said Snape. Harry shook his head and started to move away from the door. It didn't seem as though they would be leaving the kitchen soon, which he had hoped would happen, and so he would go out and fling magic at the winds. Perhaps it would help. At any rate, he shouldn't be overhearing this conversation.

"Of course it's not," said Regulus cheerfully. "Now we know each other much better, and we're old enough not to make stupid decisions, and we don't live under the domination of a murderous madman."

"Are you _quite_ sure that we both have made good decisions?"

"Well, I know _you_ haven't, very often, so I'm offering you a chance to do so."

Harry slipped outside Silver-Mirror at last, and shut the door behind him as quietly as he could. The _Extabesco plene_ prevented anyone from sensing him, but he could still create noise if he disturbed an object too loudly.

It was snowing, a punishing, driving storm that rode winds which seemed determined to knock Harry down. He cast a low-level Warming Charm, because he hoped that forcing his magic to fight the cold on a more elemental level might use some of it up, and raised his hands.

The wind dived and curtsied around him when it felt his power, dividing like skirts and then swinging back again. Harry felt himself relax, mostly because some of the energy had drained out of his muscles and into the air. He would never have Kanerva's ease around the sky—that had come from a study of it that had lasted longer than Harry had been alive—but the air absorbed each blow he could offer it and created enough interesting pattern-effects that his magic's attention drifted to it and stayed there.

Harry played until a shimmer in the snow caught his attention. He paused, and dropped his concealment. If this was a trick or trap or spy of Voldemort's, it was possible that it might flee when it saw him. If it was a messenger from his allies, a lost owl perhaps, it deserved to find its way to him.

The shimmer didn't move when he appeared, though. Harry moved forward and crouched over it. When he bushed away the snow from it, a layer of warm magic protecting his hands from both the cold and any defensive weapons the object might offer, he saw more silver.

And more, until Harry realized that he knew the color, so much like a mixture between silver and mother-of-pearl.

With a cry, he washed more of the snow away, at the same moment as warmth struck through his hands and lit a coal at each fingertip. Argutus's curled body didn't move at first, but then shifted a bit closer to the warmth. Harry picked him up gently, though he staggered as he did so. He could wear Argutus when the snake did his own coiling around Harry's body, but he had forgotten how big he was, more than six feet long now.

"How did you get here?" he whispered, and cradled him closer to his chest. He had assumed Argutus dead in the fall of Hogwarts when Snape came back and reported that nothing lived under the stones. He had wanted to mourn, but there had been only small and scattered moments here and there when he could have done so. And if he began serious mourning, he wouldn't end it in time for the next crisis.

That Argutus could have lived, and then crawled all the way across Britain to Silver-Mirror, and then survived the intense cold of the winter nights, was too incredible to believe.

Yet somehow he had done it, and he stirred now and lifted his head sluggishly to regard Harry, and hissed in weak Parseltongue, "_I knew—I knew that you were here. My scales—showed me the vision of it. I followed the vision, and I used my magic to live as much as I could. The vision—the magic of the vision heated me and filled my scales with warmth and light as it happened. But then the images stopped when I reached Silver-Mirror, and I could not move any longer." _He dropped his head abruptly to Harry's shoulder, and gave a little shiver, and Harry guessed that he had gone unconscious.

His entire body blazing with heat now, Harry looped the enormous tail around his shoulder and neck like a rope, and strode towards the door of Silver-Mirror. His magic danced helpfully around him now, intent on pumping life and sunlight into Argutus. He should not have come so far, and so bravely, only to die when he was literally on the doorstep of salvation.

SSSSSSSSSSS

Argutus was going to live.

That was the first thing Harry had understood for a few hours now, as he held Argutus on the kitchen table and warm him and then retracted the warmth, again and again, trying to drive the deadly torpor out of the Omen snake's body and not overheat him. A small temperature variation could kill a snake. And Argutus had been lying in the snow Merlin knew how long, and had slithered miles in cold before that, sustained only by his magic. From what Harry could understand of his hisses, sometimes sleepy and sometimes agitated, Argutus had very nearly depleted his own power to reach Silver-Mirror. It wasn't natural to keep a vision shining for that long. And that meant he could have drawn on energy he badly needed to survive.

But now it was two hours later, and Argutus was lively and excitable and eating a chicken that Harry had asked for and received. He would find out later where it came from, and make some recompense to the owners. Argutus swallowed the mangled body in one gulp, and went back to talking without seeming to notice the weight of his swollen neck as it draped across the table.

"—_tried to follow you, but you'd gone into the tunnels by then, and you didn't pause to wait for me._" He lifted his head and flicked his tongue against Harry's cheek.

"I'm sorry about that," Harry whispered, and smoothed one hand down his back. The scales glimmered, but they were duller than usual, which made it sheer chance and good luck—and probably the fault of the nearly full moon—that Harry had seen him shining in the snow. Harry suspected it would be a long time before they shone like illuminated milk again.

"_You had other things to think about, but it would have been nice to come back for me._" Argutus flicked his tail. "_Now, stones shook and fell, and much dirt shook down on top of me, but was I one to complain? Not me! I burrowed deeper, and slid along in the dirt with only my head above it._"

Harry frowned, and then felt a hand clasp his shoulder. He reached back and squeezed Draco's wrist without taking his eyes from Argutus. "How could you do that? I didn't know it was an ability of Omen snakes."

Argutus gave him a lofty look. "_Not the lazy ones who slither around in the woods and only ever think about mating and food, food and mating, all the year long. I learned from the runes that Draco did. The rune circles he made?"_ he added, when Harry just stared at him blankly. "_He always made one of them wrong for the effect he wanted. But he could not have known that the rune would be useful when a snake danced it, forming it with his body. Or at least me. I am the cleverest snake I know, after all, and the most magical._"

Harry reached out a hand to slowly stroke Argutus's spine, his fingers shaking slightly. The Ministry had put few restrictions on the sale and breeding of Omen snakes, since they weren't poisonous and were considered "Light" creatures. They would surely have tightened down those laws if they had known the snakes were actually capable of learning magic.

"That's wonderful, Argutus," he whispered. "You _are_ a clever snake. I've never known one like you."

Argutus flicked his tongue out and wriggled his body at the same time, which showed he was intensely happy. "_So I hid in the dirt until the tunnels stopped shaking, and then I left the tunnels. But the cold slowed me down, and I had to sleep for a while. In the meantime, it seems that someone—_" he tilted his head to look at Snape with a superior flick that made the chicken bob "—_examined the ruins and declared that I was dead. And then you left. It wasn't until I woke and saw the vision that I knew where I had to go._

"_And then, what an adventure! I crawled across the whole of England—_"

"Not quite," Harry managed to murmur. He knew Argutus was clever and wonderful, but he didn't want him to get a head as big as his neck.

Argutus gave him a wounded look. "­_Across most of it,_" he said huffily. "_And I was chased by dogs, and cats, and I got snowed on, and rained on, and I had to catch horrible-tasting things to eat. And Muggles hit me with brooms or tried to shoot me with things that went past me very fast. Except for one who tried to pick me up with a stick and take me somewhere. I don't know what he wanted, but he was an idiot if he thought I would coil around the stick. It would have broken under my weight, and all the food he had was dead._"

"You don't mind sausages and cornflakes and other things that aren't alive," Harry murmured. He didn't try to define what he was feeling as he scratched with magically heated fingers in between Argutus's scales. All he knew was that he felt better than he had since the fall of Hogwarts.

"_They are at least hot._"

"Not cornflakes."

"_You must bring down the aftermath of my tale of heroism and courage._" Argutus flicked his tail again. "_All I know is that if I were allowed to coil under the Sorting Hat, I deserved to be made a Gryffindor. And now I have come back to my human friend who doesn't even appreciate me._"

Harry laughed at that, and bent down to put his face next to Argutus's snout. "I do so appreciate you."

Apparently, he put enough emotion in the hisses, or used just the right wording. Argutus cocked his head for a moment, then said, "_Oh. That's all right, then._" Then he flopped limply across Harry's arm. "_Carry me to bed. I'm tired. And don't bring Draco with you if you're just going to smell hostile at each other. I need a peaceful sleep. Brave adventurers always have a peaceful sleep._"

Harry carefully arranged Argutus around his neck and shoulders and arms, then turned to face Draco. Draco had a complex expression on his face as he watched him. Harry knew there were other people in the kitchen—Snape and Regulus, for one thing, because Snape seemed to relish the opportunity to be in public where Regulus wouldn't talk to him, and Regulus had no intention of leaving—and he wished there was some way he could speak in Parseltongue and have Draco understand him. He didn't wanted to bring up their private difficulties in front of everyone.

Then he realized that he might not have to.

"Come with me?" he murmured, his fingers locking around Draco's wrist. He tugged him gently in the direction of the stairs.

Someone whistled. Harry flushed brilliantly, but kept his eyes trained on Draco's, wanting to see what he would say. He might be angry about what had happened over the past few days, and refuse the invitation. He might be angry about Harry going outside Silver-Mirror into the cold and the wind alone. He might be angry about any number of things.

At least, though, Draco was interested enough to take his hand and nod.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Draco knew how silly it was to be jealous of a snake—especially a snake that he himself had bought for Harry in the hopes that it would cheer him up—but he was. He hadn't been able to get Harry to smile in days, and Argutus came crawling in, Merlin knew how, and managed it in a few minutes.

But at least Harry seemed willing to talk, and led him straight to their bedroom, and warded the door with locking and silencing spells. Then he put Argutus gently down on the bed and sat beside him, one hand resting on a coil, but his eyes resting on Draco.

Draco stared neutrally back. He wanted to fold his arms, but Harry would probably see that as hostile body language and take it badly.

"Listen," said Harry, calmly. "I snapped at you because I was angry and restless, and I truly didn't believe there was any danger from Minister Gansweider. And, lo and behold, there wasn't."

Draco blinked. "That's your version of reconciling?" he demanded.

"Why, yes." Harry raised his eyebrows in an absolutely infuriating way. "Why wouldn't it be? I'm explaining why I was angry at you, why I snapped. And I am sorry for it. But I won't fling myself down at your feet and beg for forgiveness the way I would have, once. We're past that point."

"I never asked you to grovel," Draco argued.

Harry snorted.

"I _never_ did." Draco frowned at him. "I just wanted some acknowledgment, sometimes, and for you to admit that you were wrong."

Harry's eyes had an odd shine to them, one Draco had noticed over the past few days. At first he had thought it was repressed tears, but given that Harry had seemed enraged then, and was calm now, he'd been forced to discard the theory. Harry raised a hand to him now, and closed his eyes, and sat in silence. Though he fumed, Draco waited.

"Something odd is happening with my magic," Harry said at last, opening his eyes again. "I'm constantly restless, and I want to—to do something, to attack something. Using it helps, but of course I can't use it continuously, and that means it builds up again. The day I got angry at you, I almost attacked you with my magic."

"And you didn't think to mention this?" Draco drawled.

"Oh, yes, because you've always told me why you were angry with me immediately, and explained yourself reasonably," Harry snapped back. "The problem is, Draco, I have no idea what's happening. No idea at all. I've swallowed magic before. I shouldn't be experiencing these same symptoms now when I never did before. And I shouldn't still feel—well, still feel like I want to join the wild Dark."

"You could have _asked_ someone," Draco pointed out.

"Who?"

"Jing-Xi—"

He cut himself off at the complicated, bitter expression on Harry's face. "The Pact has forbidden us to communicate," said Harry. "By any means—owl, or Floo connection, or message spells. They're afraid that she'll offer me some advice she shouldn't. They have people watching to make sure we don't try to speak to each other."

"Someone else must know," Draco said. "You can use the Black library. Look it up. Tell someone what's bothering you." It frustrated him that, even after all this time, Harry's first impulse when something bad started happening was to keep silent.

"I would have had to explain what I was looking for," Harry said. "I wanted your help, but I was also too angry at you to talk to you about it before tonight."

"_That's_ counterproductive to the war effort."

"Yes, so I've seen now." Harry glared at him. "The difference is, I did apologize and admit that I was wrong. Are you going to do the same now, Draco, or is this doomed to be one-sided?"

Draco sniffed. He still didn't think he'd been in the wrong, and he didn't fancy apologizing. But now that he'd brought up the war effort, he wasn't that justified in clinging to his anger. He would become the one, then, inadvertently sabotaging the war effort by distracting Harry's attention and upsetting his emotional balance. So he gave a short nod.

"Not everything about this is resolved," he said, when Harry closed his eyes in relief.

"Of course. I know that." Harry gave him a not-quite-smile. "Now that we're, hopefully, more like adults, we know that we can argue and not have it destroy us completely." He scratched Argutus one more time, and then froze, staring at him. Draco leaned forward, wondering if an Omen snake could possibly die of cold after a few hours. But Harry seemed to be staring at Argutus's scales, and not the snake himself. Leaning closer still, Draco saw a glimpse of light and color moving on them.

Argutus gave what sounded like a hiss of pain. Harry hissed back, and put his arms around him.

"What is it?" Draco demanded.

Harry replied in Parseltongue. Draco rolled his eyes, strode forward, and grabbed Harry's chin, jerking it up. "In English, please."

"Argutus damaged his ability to show visions when he was trying to survive the cold," Harry replied, sounding bewildered. "I didn't think he could show omens right now at all. And I can't tell what's happening." He pointed to what looked, to Draco, like a bunch of swarming small shapes with two blue-black threads pouring through them. "I don't—"

And then he went still, and closed his eyes, and raised a hand to his forehead. Draco saw a few drops of blood leaking out of his scar before Harry covered it with his hand.

Draco wrenched the hand away. "I thought Voldemort couldn't attack you until the equinox."

"Not—attack." Harry still sounded in pain as he whispered. "But he can open the connection between us and leave it like that. It's not an attack. He's—ah—inviting me into his mind—"

Abruptly, Harry's eyes flared open. "Basilisks," he whispered. "He's using basilisks at Cobley-by-the-Sea."

He tried to jerk away from Draco, but Draco still held him fiercely, forcing his voice to be sane and rational. "Are you sure that's what he's doing, Harry? Does he even know where the safehouse is? He—"

"That's where the flesh-eating rain fell," Harry said desperately, pulling against his hands. "And he would have known all about the location of the Black houses from when the Blacks were loyal to him. It's not hard for him to guess that I'd use the Black houses as safehouses."

"We can't go dashing off," Draco tried to reason.

"I have to do _something!_"

And a silver mist sprang up from Harry's skin and whirled around him, and Draco felt the house start to shake with the force of accumulated magic, and suspected that it was not going to be as easy to hold Harry back this time.


	74. The Spiral Dance

**Chapter Sixty: The Spiral Dance**

Harry had never felt anything like this before. His magic clamped around his limbs and clothes like the mouths of a thousand small, eager puppies. He tried to stand against the pull, but it spilled him towards the door like a stream bearing a pebble. The magic was excited at the thought of battle with Voldemort, or at least with the basilisks he'd sent. It would chop them into small ruinous pieces, and drain the magic that sustained them. It had no responsibility to them in the way that Harry had to other magical creatures because he was _vates_. They were bred by Voldemort, tools and creations of the enemy.

Harry snapped out of his daze when he heard that. _No_, he thought firmly. _Just because they were made to be one way doesn't mean that I have the right to hurt and kill them._

His magic wasn't listening. The walls whirled apart. Harry didn't know if that were really happening in the wake of magic like a wind or if he simply saw it that way from the amount of motion he'd been forced into. He _did_ know that he didn't have nearly as much control as he wanted.

Around and around and around and around; higher and higher and higher and higher. Harry couldn't catch his breath, and the cold invaded his lungs and scarred them, though not as much as the laughter of his magic seemed set to scar his brain.

Was this what it was like to be a Dark Lord? Half out of control _all the time_, listening to one's magic howling its eagerness to tear the world apart? Of course, Voldemort's magic seemed to obey him better than this, but Harry had to wonder if that came from the viciousness of Voldemort's personality. He and his power acted in concert, so there was no need for his magic to struggle against him.

Harry would have been better able to fight the pull if he didn't think it so tempting. The air above him bulged and swayed, and he could hear the music of the Light and Dark running beyond it, sounds like streams of hoofbeats from galloping golden and dark green horses. He could join them, and no one would blame him, not when they saw the way his magic was reacting. Didn't he want to join them, to Declare and resign control of his life to a greater force?

_No._

The magic paused around him as if surprised by his answer, and Harry seized control of himself again with a gasping lunge. Suddenly he hung suspended in midair because he wanted to, and the magic bucked and danced beneath him like a wild horse barely bridled, but still with the bit in its mouth and the reins around its ears.

Harry clutched at the reins, suspecting he wouldn't get a second chance to take them back if the magic broke free this time. And he knew he couldn't go back or down, not right now. The magic was set on going to the safehouse at Cobley-by-the-Sea, and so they were going there.

But what they did when they got there—

Well, that might be more on Harry's terms than the magic's own.

The force beneath him shifted and tried slyly to buck him off. Harry gripped the reins tighter, and turned grimly towards the Cornwall coast.

He understood that, when they arrived, he would have to find some way to use his magic. What that would be, he didn't know yet.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Argutus lashed all over the bed, hissing words that were incomprehensible to Draco. He was more concerned with the fact that Harry had risen, hung for a moment in a gap between roof and sky filled with blinding, swirling silver light, and then simply vanished. He shivered and ran his hands up and down his arms, then snapped out of the trance and turned towards the door of their bedroom, flicking his wand to remove the spells locking it. He needed to tell Snape that Harry had gone.

Snape burst in the moment the door was opened, though, so Draco supposed he already knew. "Where is he?" he demanded, spittle flying from his lips.

Draco pointed towards the shadows dancing in Argutus's scales. "He said that the vision in his snake's skin showed an attack on the safehouse at Cobley-by-the-Sea," he said. "Voldemort. With basilisks. And his magic has been acting up, trying to resist his control. I think it's carried him there, and he'll probably need to fight the basilisks and Voldemort to get it back under control again."

Harry had, for a moment, amid those whirling silver blades of wind and light, looked alien, more like a Lord than Draco's partner. Draco hoped that he never looked like that again. He liked power, as any self-respecting Dark wizard did, and he liked being near Harry's magic, but not when it was trying to remove him from the mortal wizarding world altogether.

"We must go at once to the safehouse," said Snape, without blinking, and turned to go down the stairs. Draco followed.

He staggered as a weight took up residence on his shoulders, though. Argutus had flung himself at Draco. Draco fell to one knee, and that gave the Omen snake time to slither up to his shoulder and wind a coil around his neck, so tightly that Draco's lungs labored for a moment in instinctive fear.

"He seems intent on going along, sir," he said, when he could look up and see Snape watching him.

Snape narrowed his eyes. "As you must," he said, and charged down the stairs once again. Draco had to use the banister to follow, given the way that Argutus's weight unbalanced him. He wondered how Harry bore carrying him.

He set his mind on that as a question that he would ask Harry when this was all over. He _would_ be able to ask it, because they _would_ both survive this. Draco was determined on that.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry didn't know how to describe the journey he and his magic took across Britain to Cobley-by-the-Sea. He could have spoken intelligently about the stars they passed, drifting and flickering like meteors, and perhaps he could have counted them if he'd dropped the memory into a Pensieve. But he couldn't describe, not for certain, the way the sky turned black and red like dried magma on a bed of fresh, hot lava and then peeled away, revealing more flesh-colored sky beneath it, or the way that his horse kicked and stamped and at once tried to buck him off and keep him on so that it could be smug about its rider.

He might have passed through the paths of Light and Dark. He didn't know. He did know that the wind in his ears, the force that kept his heart beating through regions of immense pressure, the cold that bit the base of his skull even as his body overheated elsewhere, was all magic.

And when he came out of the magic and had to assert control over it, then a battle would begin.

Harry was not at all sure that it was a battle he would win.

The pressure that had built under his skin made perfect sense now, perhaps because it wasn't under his skin any more. It stormed around him, eagerness to do something and will to do it and longing to change the face of the world. Confined in a body whose limbs moved to Harry's will instead of its own, of course it had wanted to burst free. And now it had, but it still centered on him, and made him the one who would drown in its whirlpool, the one who rode its back. If it hurt someone else, or escaped from his control altogether and ravaged the country like a wild thing, it would be Harry's fault.

Harry took a deep breath, and winced as flying shards of ice stung blood out of his mouth. He would have to get used to that, remember it, and absorb it. He had absorbed enough other responsibilities, hadn't he? He could take on this additional burden.

Except that he didn't want to. The grief and the hopelessness, mingled with the fact that he had to be endlessly patient with other grieving, hopeless people, had built up to the point where he just wanted it to _end_. Not, perhaps, in death. He was amenable to being talked out of suicide. But if he could have made someone else into the person people trusted to solve their problems, he would have. And flying into his magic, escaping into the clouds and the winds and the paths, sounded so _good_. He would no longer care about what his magic had done when he lost his mind and his conscience and went flying in the midst of pure awareness, would he?

He knew that would be evil. He knew it objectively. But it seemed that good earned him nothing, either—not an end to the burdens he had to carry and the miseries he caused or exacerbated or had to heal, nor a glimpse of joy. The joy he had was provisional, in the future. He always had to deal with suffering _now_, and most of the people who could contribute help were reluctant to do so, still dwelling in the middle of principles that didn't want them to help certain wizards or certain magical species.

He was just tired of being the one who had to persuade _everyone._

And he knew that wasn't true, that other people had helped him, and so he couldn't even experience frustration and resentment unalloyed. He had to remember he was being selfish at the same time, and that bred more frustration and resentment, and that added to the magic swirling around him. Other people could whinge and be selfish and then get back to the business of working with and for others. But a moment of selfishness on his part would have consequences too catastrophic for Harry to indulge in it.

But it was that very lack of selfishness that made his magic lunge free of him and cause more trouble.

Harry saw the whole cycle with clear eyes, now. No matter what he did, it led to more wrongness. And an attempt to withdraw his magic from the world and end the cycle would lead to more wrongness still.

There was nothing he could do that wasn't morally corrupt. And there might be nothing he could do against Voldemort when they arrived at Cobley-by-the-Sea and had to fight the basilisks, either.

Harry thought, and thought, and thought. The emotions were pinned under glass, now, and he gave more attention to them than to the shifting and bucking of his magic. His power was content to wait until they arrived at the safehouse, in fact. It would fight him there, in a place where the stakes were greater.

So. If helping other people was too unselfish and not helping them was too selfish, then he hung between two morally corrupt alternatives, and he could not satisfy everyone no matter what he did.

_Very well. Then I can make the choice I want to make, and live with the people yelling at me. Just because I anger someone doesn't mean I need to mourn it for the rest of my life. _

Harry chose.

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

Draco arrived with a stagger at the edge of Cobley-by-the-Sea's wards. Regulus had come with them, and in fact had Side-Along Apparated Draco, since Argutus's weight made it uncertain that Draco would arrive in one piece when Apparating on his own, and the Omen snake refused to be let go or left behind. Draco looked up, blinking, and then stared.

Glittering cascades of magic hung around the house, the remains of broken wards. The few visible windows were broken. Large holes in the earth showed how the basilisks had avoided the wards. Draco grimaced. _They dug up from beneath._

"Where are they?" he whispered.

"And where's Harry?" Regulus added, sounding suspicious and relieved at the same time, as if he thought that they could do something since they'd arrived at the safehouse before Harry had. _Unlikely_, Draco thought. Harry had departed in the middle of a blaze of magic, and he was the Black legal heir. He had nearly as much power over the houses as Regulus did. If he wanted to turn the broken wards against them, Regulus would be the only one who could resist.

Draco wouldn't say that he was _afraid_ of Harry, exactly, even now, but he had seen him rise, and he had felt the magic dancing around him, a winter storm with hatred in its teeth. He wouldn't want to face him alone, either, or to anger him when he was in this mood.

"We should search inside the house," Snape stated, drawing his wand. "We can see little from here, as most of Cobley-by-the-Sea is underground. The survivors may have fled into some distant corner."

Draco relaxed at the reminder of how much of the house was buried under the cliffs. Then he looked at the two large holes, and thought of basilisks traveling through cracks in the stones, and shivered.

Then the night around them turned to obsidian streaked with diamond.

Draco lifted his head. A small shape was visible high overhead, looking like a Gloryflower horse, but carved of jet rather than silver, and without wings. It whirled twice, and then bore down on the house like a diving hawk.

At the same moment, someone moved on the edge of his peripheral vision. Draco whirled around, and then stumbled as Argutus suddenly left his shoulders in a wave of silver and white, making directly for Indigena Yaxley.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Indigena had not known that the basilisks would be so wasteful of their prey. From what she knew of the snakes, they slew and then ate, or at least circled back on their prey when the killing was done and ate.

But it seemed that her Lord had commanded his pets to simply kill, without thought of what came after. They had swarmed up beneath the wards, which they broke with rams of their snouts, and collars of magic that her Lord had created and bound about their necks. And they crawled around the safehouse staring in through the windows, killing or petrifying everyone they could, until their victims retreated into the cliffs and they had to find some way through the rock.

Indigena's vines had been vital for that, which was one reason that her Lord had sent her along. The snakes might be powerful, but even they would find it difficult to burrow through solid rock, unless something went along in front of them and broke up the stone. So her plants dived, and found small cracks, and widened them into larger cracks, and then the wham of the basilisks' noses and tails made them into holes that, hopefully, would take them into the heart of the cliffs.

Indigena had known that Harry would arrive soon, since her Lord had crafted this attack to draw him. She had even though that other people might come along with him. But she hadn't expected to be attacked by an Omen snake.

She jumped away, first, but found that the damn snake was too quick, lunging after her and wrapping itself around her body. Then the muscles clamped down and began to squeeze, which made Indigena lose her breath. A moment later, she was annoyed. Thanks to the springy plants under the surface of her skin, even a serpent as powerful as an Omen snake couldn't simply bear down and break her, but it was uncomfortable, and some of the more delicate leaves would probably crumple and cast odd shadows.

She tried to take the thorns out of the sheaths on her back, only to find that the Omen snake had already bound them. The moment the sheaths grew thicker in one place, in fact, prefatory to the thorns bursting out, the snake's coils tightened exactly _there_, and Indigena heard her bones creak in warning.

She moved her left hand. If possible, she would sting him through the scales with her thorny rose. The scales themselves were much less thick than the wrinkled blue-purple hide that covered the basilisks, smooth and soft and nearly opalescent. She should be able to cut them apart or slide beneath one.

And then a silvery shape took form around her, and attracted still more of her attention away from either Harry soaring through the sky or the snakes tunneling through the earth.

The shade of Aurora Whitestag wrapped around her hand and held it still, her face shut and obstinate. Indigena tried to pull away; the ghost's chill was making her skin tingle and then shut down with frostbite, the cold heavy as sleep. But Aurora wouldn't let go, and the snake was clamping down, now, with terrible relentlessness. Indigena found it increasingly hard to breathe.

She closed her eyes, sank her toes into the earth, and sent her roots worming down. Stone listened to her less than soil and the green tendrils of her darlings did, but it was still more her weapon than it would be the natural habitat of a ghost or a snake.

A moment later, she dropped straight down a tunnel that opened beneath her, and then wrapped the stone more and more tightly around her. The Omen snake would have to let go soon, or be crushed between her skin and the rock.

To Indigena's dismay, the change in scenery didn't seem to have discouraged Aurora, who projected from the tunnel wall like some strange gargoyle and went right on squeezing her wrist.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry knew what he needed to do. His senses warned him of Draco and Snape and Regulus nearby, and even a presence that felt like Argutus, but he had made the decision to be unselfish. That meant that he needed to focus on the people most in danger right now, and that meant the men and women darting through the safehouse in search of refuge from the basilisks.

The black horse dissolved beneath him. He dropped straight through a roaring gulf of wind, which still turned red and black and peeled away on either side of him, burning flakes that drifted past his shoulders and set his hair on fire. Ice answered from within his body, and clouds of steam rose around him. Harry wondered idly if anyone could see him from the ground below.

He sent a cord of magic out before him, binding the roof of Cobley-by-the-Sea and ordering it to turn from solid stone that would break his plunge by killing him into a kind of syrupy mixture that would do credit to pancake batter. A moment later, he floated waist-deep in it, and then he took a deep breath and sank down through it, his magic dancing around him, changing the mixture moment by moment back into stone, so that it wouldn't destroy the integrity of the house.

Harry smiled a bit. He had counted on the need to perform multiple tasks at once to keep his magic from turning on him, and it seemed that it had worked.

But it wouldn't work forever, and that meant he needed to find the basilisks. He dropped lightly to his knees on a staircase inside the house and began to speak in Parseltongue, calling the basilisks to come to him. They were unlikely to obey, of course, since Voldemort and not Harry had bred them, but they might come in outrage at being called.

Shadows stirred at the bottom of the staircase, and Harry saw a shine of scarlet from the plume and blue-black from the scales just in time to shut his eyes. It would probably come around the corner and seek to kill him with a gaze, rather than shielding its eyes with false lids.

An outraged hiss came from the foot of the stairs—it was cursing him in Parseltongue—and then the steps shook as the immense serpent began to ascend them. Harry could feel it coming, could almost hear the poison dripping from its fangs, smell its cold dusty breath, and sense its eagerness to kill him.

Harry opened his eyes then, but kept his head bowed, so that he wouldn't die or freeze. His gaze was focused on the surging coils, relentless as the waves of the sea, and he searched for a particular glimmer—

There, like diamond patterns of sunlight on the surface of water, low on the basilisk's side. There was the edge of the web that Voldemort had woven as extra insurance to keep his serpents bound to him.

Harry grabbed it and ripped it free.

And then the world around him churned and vanished into a cascade of fire, with his magic running beside him in the shape of a red horse and snorting in startlement. Always before, Harry had been prepared when he unwound a web, at least to the point of knowing its general shape and what he should do to unbind it. This time, he had no clue, and that concentrated the magic's attention wonderfully.

Harry knew he stood a good chance of falling from the high-wire he was trying to walk. But the virtue of this complicated dance, where he had to split his attention between cutting the web, defending himself from the basilisk's physical attacks, and saving the people in the house, was that his magic _had_ to use itself fully, and couldn't spare time for mischievous rebellions.

The red horse running beside him turned its head at that thought, as if trying to appreciate his cleverness but not finding the wherewithal to do it.

And then a broken world of images grabbed Harry fully.

He ran up a sheer cliff of white light, flowing with silver sparks from a waterfall of fire. That was the steepest part of the web, and Harry took it apart all around him, destroying the cliff just beneath his feet, loosening strand after strand that confined the basilisk's intelligence and made him think it imperative to listen to some strange little creature with two legs and a heavy accent.

Harry rolled to the side as fangs struck the step where he'd stood. Then he jumped, the magic granting his body enough lightness to do so, and landed on the ridge of one shifting coil. He ducked his head and closed his eyes as the swaying head, fangs bared, deadly gaze open, barely passed over him.

The rest of his magic, the part that had been most intent on getting free from his control, ran through the halls of Cobley-by-the-Sea and gathered up those it could find who weren't lying still or dying helplessly from the basilisk's poison. It shoved them into rooms and barricaded the doors, and strengthened the floors enough that a snake would hurt her snout before she could batter them open, and give it up as a bad job. It made itself into the black horse that Harry had ridden to Cornwall, and raced off to find the female basilisk.

The waterfall broke, but Harry grabbed hold of a gleaming silver rope and swung into a new corner of the web, a clear angle ashine with its own stickiness. He cut it apart with the swung of a sword, and the ground roared and dropped him into an abyss bright with white dots, like a black tablecloth sprinkled with salt.

He grabbed hold hard of one coil, and tucked himself into the folds of the king snake's body. Just in time; the basilisk had begun to roll, in the same maneuver that had crushed Sylarana to death in the Chamber of Secrets. Scales pressed hard on Harry and then released him as he came upright again, but he had hidden so close that they had hit the floor instead of him. The basilisk realized what he had done and hissed in frustration, head turning again, and Harry decided that it was time for a different tactic.

It had found her. The magic flirted its tail and then showed its heels to the female basilisk as she came after it. She was tired of not eating the humans she had killed, and hoped that a meal of horse would make the difference for her waning strength.

Harry caught himself in the middle of the abyss, and demanded that there be light. A harsh glare around him showed him that he was in the knot in the center of the web, a clustered clot of jelly that could not be sliced through as he'd cut the other corner. Harry prodded it thoughtfully for a moment, and then opened his _absorbere_ gift and swallowed the knot, foul magic and compulsion and all, in a huge gulp.

Harry closed his eyes to avoid the killing gaze and jumped, pushing hard with his feet against the dancing body. He rose, and rose, and rose, and luckily the magic was keeping track and didn't carry him past his target, the basilisk's snout. He grabbed it, and then turned around, and then he was riding in front of the snake's eyes, blinding it with his body.

The black horse cantered down a hallway, saw a staircase ahead, and _leaped_, helped by a surge of power that meant its host had swallowed some new magic. It landed with a skid and a clatter of hooves, and then turned another corner. The female basilisk had to take the stairs, and showed her displeasure in a series of hisses that made the corridor come alive with gravelly echoes.

Harry caught a corner of the black knot as it disintegrated, and swung out into light again, a sliding golden world between twin ridges of diamond. He would hit something if he kept swinging, so he took his own power on trust and plunged once again into freefall. This time, he created a series of iron teeth that spread out from him, chewing at both gold and white, trying to separate every single strand of the web from every other.

Harry felt the jaws opening beneath him, and knew that his dangling legs were dangerously close to the great fangs. He forced both strength and grace into his muscles and sprang backwards, over the basilisk's head and onto its neck, just behind the head. The red plume rose above him like a giant fern, and the male basilisk went mad, rubbing himself against the walls, trying to get him off.

The horse knew it had almost reached its destination, and thrilled to the thought, even as it thrilled to the magic running through it like blood. Splitting itself this many ways, doing so many different things at once, pushed it to the limit, and that had been all it wanted, really—to do great things. Teeth snapped just behind its tail, and it squealed and jumped, flinging itself through midair, blurring to a shadow as it moved, knowing exactly where it was going.

Harry knew the web had mostly broken, but one piece of it still remained: the knot that held the basilisk most in thrall to Voldemort, the one that made it recognize him as parent. Harry hovered in front of it, this dense black ball with all the weight of lead, and waited.

He rolled upside down now, so that he was clutching the underside of the basilisk's throat. Drops of poison scattered past him, and the king serpent opened and closed his mouth again and again. Then he turned his head, alerted by the vibrations in the stones of the approach of his mate.

The black horse passed out of existence, and slammed back into its host, giving him a jolt of strength.

Harry struck with all his power and annihilated the knot in the basilisk's mind that made it think Voldemort was its master, disintegrating the web. He rode the falling pieces back into his own consciousness.

Harry twisted out of the way just as the basilisk gave a confused little hiss, free and not knowing what to do with it. Then, eyes still closed, he flung himself at the female basilisk, all three parts united now, and ate her web, ripping it free from her body and mind in one complicated maneuver.

The magic strained wildly to take in the new food and keep from being killed by the golden eyes of the monster it faced and keep its master upright. And then he slid down the female's neck to the ground, and the magic flipped itself exultantly through Harry. It was content to be under control, as long as Harry would keep doing things like this to keep it occupied.

Harry turned and faced the confused basilisks, who had their necks entwined and were swaying back and forth as they tried to figure out what to do. He hissed soothingly in Parseltongue, "I know something you can do."

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Indigena hated intelligent snakes. She hated the way that a basilisk could make her feel like prey with a look, and she hated the way that this Omen snake managed to unbind himself and drop to the bottom of the tunnel the moment that she began to truly crush him.

Indigena tried to close the tunnel beneath her, then, and trap and crush him there, but he still didn't give her the chance. Instead, he swarmed up and past her face, using her head as a stepping stone out of the earth.

She swore, and closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, Aurora still projected from the side of the tunnel, but had let go of her hand.

"What's the matter?" Indigena asked her, because she was tired of _so much_. "Changed your mind about killing me?"

Aurora cocked her head. "You still place too much importance on yourself," she answered. "I died thinking of ways to stop you. I didn't die thinking of ways that I could kill you."

And she faded into the rock, which left Indigena to climb out of it on her own.

When she reached the ground, she found three wands leveled at her, and no sign of the immense storm that her Lord had said would signal Harry losing control of his magic. She sighed. Another plan gone wrong.

She saw the traitor Snape's wand rising higher, and the dark look in his eyes. He wouldn't care about Harry's morals, but kill her out of hand. In a way, Indigena approved. It was the only way to get rid of those who had chosen to commit their lives to a mortal enemy.

But she couldn't have that, so she opened flowers along her skin and breathed out a drifting cloud of perfume. For one moment, her enemies' faces went slack, and their wands trembled and tumbled down.

Indigena seized the moment to Apparate. Let no one accuse her of wasting time, at least when she wasn't trying to hold back from torturing someone.

She arrived at the burrow prepared to tell her Lord that his plan had failed—she would have remained where she was and sent a message through the Dark Mark if it had succeeded—only to find that he already knew. From his raging, Indigena managed to pick out that he had lost control of his basilisks, and Harry had exercised his magic unbinding the webs.

Indigena took a seat in a corner, and nursed her aches and bruises, and wondered if her death was near.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry sighed as he watched the basilisks swim away. With a little persuasion, he had managed to make them understand that they couldn't stay in England; people would hunt them. And their gazes would only cause them trouble, because they would likewise be hunted, and cause deaths that would bring magical creatures as well as people down on them. So they'd agreed, at least, to let him transform their eyes into less deadly objects. They could still petrify, but not do murder, with them.

Harry had advised them to find an uninhabited island where they could hunt and live alone, so that they wouldn't have to contend with wizards trying to kill them for scales or ordinary Muggles shooting them from fear. They had agreed with only a few weak arguments about being free to hunt wherever they wanted. They knew, because Harry had told them so, that they might be the only living basilisks in the world right now, and that, for various reasons, not least because his allies would never tolerate it, they couldn't stay with him.

So they slid into the sea off the cliffs, long bodies ducking easily in and out of the brine, their hisses filtering up to him in a crooning song of celebration and mourning. Harry watched them until he saw their scales become indistinguishable from flakes of foam on the waves, and then turned away with a sigh.

Draco, Regulus, and Snape were pounding around the side of the house. Snape and Regulus paused when they saw him, but Draco kept coming, and so did Argutus, who'd flowed around the corner just behind them. Harry accepted the hug around his middle from arms and then around his legs from an Omen snake who seemed determined to make him fall over altogether.

"I hate that you did that," Draco whispered into his ear.

Harry rolled his eyes. _I suppose an "I'm so glad you're all right" is too much work for him._

But he managed to say simply, "I know you did," and then dip a shoulder to accept Argutus's weight as he climbed his body. "My magic is back under control now," he added.

Draco pulled back, blinking at him. "How did you do that? From what I saw when you were rising, I would have said no one could control it."

"I broke the webs on the basilisks."

Now Draco paled. "And let them go free to—"

"I told them to swim the sea and find an island," Harry pointed out. "After I changed their eyes so that they couldn't kill anyone with a look anymore. And the work of breaking the webs at the same time as I preserved the lives of the people still alive in Cobley-by-the-Sea was what my magic needed to calm down. Now it thinks I'll offer it plenty of excitement, so it'll stay with me." He smiled a bit. "I think Voldemort was counting on me to either Declare or self-destruct. He didn't count on the fact that the magic of a _vates_ might well find the work of unbinding webs to be the most exhilarating of all."

"I was _worried_ about you," Draco said.

Harry sighed. _I wanted to ignore it, but if I don't stop it, it'll go on and on._

"Draco," he said, taking him by the shoulders and staring into his eyes. "I know that. I _understand_ that. I know you hate it when I fly away without telling you about it or taking you along. But the simple fact of the matter is that my magic wasn't about to take no for an answer, and trying to take you along would have destroyed you. My magic sometimes leads me where you can't follow. My not discussing everything with you for six hours beforehand is not a deliberate fault, it's just what has to happen. I love you, but that doesn't mean I'll always stay out of danger. _Please_ stop scolding me and acting as if every time I go alone, it's a deliberate snub to you and proof that I don't care about you."

Draco just stared at him.

Harry shrugged. He'd _known_ that at least one person would react like this. No matter what he did, he was too selfish/too unselfish. And that had been part of what was bearing him down, the horrible, crushing weight of trying to find some way to act which would respect everyone and injure no one, and the impossibility of finding it. Someone was always upset with him no matter what happened.

So he had chosen to act as unselfishly as possible, in the way that would let him win this war, and if Draco blamed him for it in the meantime, then Harry would live with that blame. He would have to. He couldn't act as he had been, out of control and worrying more about what people would say if they found out than getting hold of his magic.

He turned to Snape and Regulus, who had watched the scene in silence, and said, "I think it's time that we discuss going after the third Horcrux."


	75. The New Ministry

**Warning: Mild slash at the end of the third scene. **

**Chapter Sixty-One: The New Ministry**

Connor took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He was all over sweat, his hands clenched in front of him and his arms aching from the way that he gripped his knees, but he didn't care. He'd been in his room for hours, practicing and struggling with the magic that wanted to force him away from his goal. But he wouldn't give up. Not now. He was going to make it all the way through, and then he was going to be _useful_ to Harry.

He forced himself forward.

It hurt. He could feel the drag on his muscles, the sheer and stubborn clutch of cloth and flesh, and the burning as he held his breath and strained for the goal. But he didn't care. He'd done harder things than this. He'd brought Harry back the night that Voldemort tried to enchant him. He'd won Quidditch games when the opposing Seeker was excellent; playing Cho Chang had been no mean feat when the Gryffindor team was exhausted from practice and Cho had a broom that was newer than his. He'd gone into his parents' trial and told everyone that Harry was the Boy-Who-Lived, even though he knew what that would mean.

He strained, and strained, and when he felt his feet slipping backwards as if on a smooth marble floor, he dug them in and lunged forward.

And then he reached it.

It was like nothing he'd imagined, a freefall into enormous pain. Connor gasped and shielded his face with an arm, despite the fact that there was no one around who could have seen him. And then his arm fell away from his face as if it wasn't meant to bend that way and hit the floor with a little click, and Connor opened his eyes, and his face was different, and the mirror he'd set up across the room in hopes that this would happen showed him a wild boar.

Awed, Connor tossed his head, and nearly toppled himself forward; he hadn't realized how _heavy_ his head would be in this incarnation. He wobbled on his legs for a moment, and that steadied him. Then he went back to admiring the sharp shine of the tusks as they extended past his jaws.

He had known he would be strong. But behind the tusks, feeling the weight of them from this side, he had a bone-deep knowledge of how deadly they really were. It was no wonder that dying by tusk used to be one of the most common deaths for Muggle hunters. A boar could defend himself.

His instincts were urging him to charge the mirror, and drive off the competitor for his territory. Connor turned away from the mirror so that he wouldn't be tempted to do that and get covered with glass shards, and then focused on changing back into his human form.

As Harry had said and Peter had promised, this was much easier than the other way around. He knew his human body better, and even though he grimaced as his bones cracked and his shoulders relaxed from their hunch and his tusks sank into his face, he also accelerated through the pain like he was on a Firebolt, while the first change had been more like riding through it on a Nimbus. And then he knelt on the floor, and panted, and sweated, and _exulted._

Now, at least, he had a skill that no one else in Harry's army did, and he could defend Harry in unexpected ways if someone showed up to capture him. He stretched his arms over his head, and reached for the cloth that he'd put nearby, like the mirror, to clean himself off once he was done with the transformation. He had been sure that he would achieve it today, though Peter had cautioned him to wait for some time, warning him that he didn't want to attempt it two days in a row.

But Connor could do what other people thought he ought not to be able to do, and that meant that he'd done it _now_.

He wondered when, exactly, he should change into his new form and chase Parvati up and down the hall.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Draco didn't understand.

After the mess at Cobley-by-the-Sea, Harry seemed both more relaxed and more intolerant than before. He brought out maps of Thornhall, which Lazuli Yaxley had given him, and laid them flat on a table in one of the Black studies while he spoke about Indigena's garden and how they would go after the Horcrux hidden there. He had either managed not to think of what the end of a Horcrux hunt would inevitably mean, or he was ignoring it like a pro. He laughed when Peter suggested that he, Snape, and Regulus go alone, but had to admit that he wouldn't be able to enter the garden himself, as he didn't have a Dark Mark. They consulted with Hawthorn, too, since, if worst came to worst, she would be able to enter the garden as well, and she knew more about plants than the rest of them did.

Draco could see from the light in multiple eyes that the former Death Eaters were already considering which one of them should be the sacrifice.

With him, though, Harry blew hot and cold. He was happy to talk to Draco about almost anything other than the danger he was in. If Draco once began to express himself on how he felt about that, Harry Apparated away. It was an effective way to prevent an argument, but it was driving Draco slowly and steadily mad.

Today they were in front of the maps of Thornhall again, with Hawthorn diagnosing, based on eyewitness reports of what plant stalks grew above the wall, which traps were probably where. Harry sat at the head of the table, listening with an intense, thoughtful expression on his face. Connor was beside him, face flushed with the triumph of finally achieving his Animagus transformation, and Draco thought he paid more attention to that than the strategy they were discussing. Thomas sat next to Connor, his nose buried in a book about cures for plant poisons, and Peter stood beside him, eyes half-closed and face carefully blank. Snape and Regulus were on the other side of the table. Even as Draco watched, Regulus reached out an arm as if he would drape it over Snape's shoulders, and Snape shifted carefully away.

And there was Draco, sitting beside Harry, but being ignored as thoroughly as if he were another chair.

"There's no way to be sure which ones are in the middle," Hawthorn said with a small sigh, sitting back and shaking her head. "And, as you know, the artifacts that the Stone brought to us didn't include a Time-Turner, so there's no way that we can go back in time to the moment before Indigena cast the spell. What we _can_ do is bring artifacts that will slow the passage of time if one of the plants stings or stabs us, and give the victim extra moments to recover." She nodded to Harry. "It's seeming more and more as if the best solution is for you to stand just outside the garden, prepared to call the shade of Tom Riddle to you when he bursts free, but not entering it."

Harry murmured something. Draco thought it had rhymes in it, but he couldn't make it out. Of course, at this point in his relationship to Harry, he had grown used to not understanding things, though he hated it.

"What was that?" Hawthorn asked.

"Nothing," Harry said, with a shake of his head, and bent over the map of Thornhall again.

A brief, annoyed look covered Hawthorn's face, which was only slightly less intimidating now that her eyes weren't amber. Draco took a kind of cold comfort in the fact that he wasn't the only one feeling left out.

"When do we begin this attack?" Peter asked. Draco glanced at him. He was rocking on his heels, face shuttered, but his hands wrapping around each other, fingers tapping against the heels of his palms over and over again. _Does Harry know that he's planning on being the sacrifice? _

"We need a day before the spring equinox." Harry rubbed a hand down the side of his face, eyes intent. "But other than that, any day will do." He looked up and met Peter's eyes, and Draco revised his opinion of Harry's intelligence upwards again. It seemed that Harry _did_ know Peter was thinking about making himself the sacrifice, but the look in his eyes—Draco had lost his ability to read the emotions there, if he'd ever had it. The way that Harry looked at people who might give up their lives for him had always been too complicated for an easy resolution.

"Hmmm," said Peter, and fell silent.

Harry sighed and sat back. "Of course, if we can find out more about the garden, and research the cures to the most likely poisons, we'll be better off waiting." He nodded to Thomas, who didn't seem to have glanced up from his book once, as if he didn't realize that other people were moving around him and talking. "Lazuli is trying to find records of the plants that Indigena bought over the years, seedlings and the like. Of course, that won't tell us everything; she used her magic to change them and cross them with other species. But I'll have Neville look at them. He can tell us things that we can't know, with his genius in Herbology."

"What about Sprout?" Hawthorn asked. "Surely she should be here, too, adding to our knowledge."

Harry sighed. "They finally dug out enough of the stones at Hogwarts. She's dead. A tunnel collapsed on her while she was trying to lead several children who'd got lost out."

He said it with some mourning, some sobriety, but not the deep grief that Draco had heard him expressing just a short time ago. It seemed that Harry really had adapted, woken up from the depression consuming him, and shaken himself into a new kind of existence.

_If only that didn't involve cutting me out of his life, _Draco thought, unable to keep the resentment from his mind, or, it seemed, his face, because Harry turned abruptly in just that moment and met his eyes.

Draco glanced away, sullenly, but he had the feeling that Harry had already seen far too much.

"We'll work on learning the garden," Harry announced, and reached out to grasp Draco's hand under the table. Draco nearly wrenched it free in sheer surprise, but Harry held it firmly, even entwining their fingers. "If we can have another week, or another two weeks, I don't mind that. I'd much rather that we _know_ the garden before we enter it, especially as I can only send my magic over the walls."

"How is your magic, by the way?" Regulus asked, leaning around Snape to stare hard at Harry. "Exercised, since that night at Cobley-by-the-Sea?"

Harry smiled. Draco hated that smile. It was confident and powerful, which was a good thing, but it was also—it was also a smile that didn't include him, because he didn't know how Harry had come to the conclusions that allowed him to radiate that confidence and power.

"We're going to be raising a new Ministry," he reminded Regulus gently. "Who do you think will be responsible for lifting the stones into their places and making sure they're properly fitted together according to the plans? My magic wants big, grand tasks, so I'll make sure that it has them."

Regulus blinked, as though he hadn't been expecting that, though owls bearing notices about the new Ministry had been coming and going from Harry to his Light allies all week. "Oh. And you're sure that we should raise a new Ministry while Voldemort's still at large?"

Harry nodded. "People need to see the symbol. As long as the new government operates exclusively from the Smiths' home, and the Apollonis house, and Silver-Mirror, they can think that _we're_ the ones in charge of it, and no one else. But a Ministry will give them somewhere else to concentrate their belief, their hope, and their ire.

"Besides, Voldemort still can't attack me directly until the equinox. I'm going to wreathe the new Ministry in wards that mean any magic he uses against it will be the same as attacking me directly, since the wards are linked to me. Yes, after the equinox it'll be in the same danger every other place is, but that's why I hope to destroy the Horcruxes before the equinox."

Regulus nodded, as if that made sense. Draco supposed it did. He was simply so resentful that he didn't want Harry explaining sanely like that, because—well, why wasn't Harry as disturbed by their loss of constant contact and accord as Draco was?

"If that's all?" Harry glanced around the table with raised eyebrows, and received several nods. "Thank you all for your contributions." And he stood up, hand still firmly gripped in Draco's, and dragged him towards the stairs.

Draco followed. Perhaps it would be Harry's turn to scold and yell and fire off accusations, and Draco would be the one who coolly got to walk away. He'd like that.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry hadn't meant to let the problem go on this long, really. He wouldn't have let it lapse if Draco had showed the signs of learning the lessons the way he was supposed to. Harry had thought that spending time around Draco except when he was scolding would show Draco just how unwelcome the scolding was.

But now it seemed that he was learning resentment of Harry instead, and that wasn't something Harry wanted. He wanted them to become a functioning team again, partners in every sense of the word. It _needed_ to happen. It needed to happen because Harry wanted that back again, that sense of agreement and mutual dependence with Draco that he hadn't felt in nearly a month, and it needed to happen because the war effort needed them together, matched, presenting a perfect front.

Harry was wise enough not to mention the war effort reason. It wasn't as important as the other one, anyway. But the fact remained that it was there, part of the equation, and part of the reason that he had been trying to agree with Draco when Draco wasn't trying to control his life. They _needed_ to be together. He _needed_ Draco, and there was nothing shameful about that need, any more than there was about the need to keep breathing.

He sat down on their bed, and reached across to clasp Draco's other hand. Draco avoided his gaze, sullenly staring at the corner of the room where Argutus had taken to making his pallet instead.

"Well," said Harry. "I suppose I'll have to take up Padma on that date she asked me on after all."

That got Draco's attention, of course, as few other things would have. His head snapped around, an ugly expression of jealousy twisting his features. "What?" he barked.

Harry sighed and lay down, then drew Draco into his arms before he could protest. He kissed him, and Draco stiffened for a moment, as if he expected that the kiss was more a persuasive technique than something Harry was doing because he wanted to.

It was _both_. Harry wondered if he should just explain that in plain and simple terms. Draco didn't seem able to understand it otherwise.

"I was joking," he whispered. "There's been precious little playfulness in our relationship of late, Draco. I'm trying to bring it back."

"Saying that you might accept dates with other people isn't the way to do it," Draco muttered, and tucked his head under Harry's chin so that he couldn't be kissed any more. But he didn't move away, at least, so that was something.

Harry continued speaking, quietly and calmly. "I know that you're worried for me. I know that you love me. And I love you, in return, and I've tried to be patient with the scolding. But I'm at a point in my life right now where I _literally_ can't take it, Draco. I can't bear it, for your sake or my sake or the sake of the war. And I don't think I should have to. Maybe someday, when things are calmer, I'll be able to listen to you chide me with nothing more than a fond smile on my face. But not now, Draco." He paused. "Do you understand?"

"No," Draco whinged. Harry rolled his eyes, but listened. It was what he'd come here to do, after all, and have done. "You can't simply charge off into danger, Harry. It's a continuation of bad habits."

"So is your whinging."

"I _do not—_" Draco was trying to pull away so that he could look Harry in the eye.

"I let you come with me into battle," Harry said quietly. "I did it even when the vampire hive queen came to Hogsmeade, and we didn't know if it would be safe for you to go. Remember? And I do it without whinging and without complaining, Draco. Yes, I worry for you. Yes, I take every precaution that I can to keep you safe. And yes, I freeze when someone snatches you. But that doesn't mean that I insist you tell me your every movement before you leave our rooms, or before we go into battle."

"That's different," Draco said.

"Why?"

"I won't charge off recklessly."

Harry snorted. "But you have plenty of other bad habits, Draco. Why should I indulge your bad habits when you make a point not to indulge mine? As you said, running off without my head on straight is a habit I really need to break. And worrying over me like a mother Augurey with one chick is a habit _you_ need to get rid of."

"But you _need_ me to do that," Draco said, and this time he did jerk back so that they were eye-to-eye. "No one else looks out for you the way I do, Harry. And how many times would you have died if not for me?"

"Snape looks out for me," said Harry comfortably. "And I don't like even that, though he's my guardian and my father. Connor looks out for me, and I resent that because _I_ was trained to protect _him_, and I think he has more bravery than sense. Hawthorn does what she can to protect me, and has since I started giving her the Wolfsbane. Peter, likewise; he broke out of Azkaban and risked having his soul eaten to come and warn me about the phoenix web and the extent of Dumbledore's duplicity."

"I've still saved your life!"

"And likewise," said Harry, his mind going back to their battle at Woodhouse their fifth year. "Remember? Greyback tried to eat you, and I stopped him. And then Whitecheek tried to eat me, and you stopped her. We're mutually bound to each other, Draco. We owe each other debts. You have to stop acting as though you have the right to scold me when you won't permit me the same thing; you get sulky and fight back when I get upset with you, but you likewise get sulky when I do something like Apparate away from you."

"You should stay here and finish the argument."

"In what way?" Harry cocked his head. "With promises not to do it anymore? You'll discard those, and for good reason. With explanations? You don't believe those. With demonstrations of how I can take care of myself? You don't believe _me_."

Draco scowled at him.

"We _both_ have the right to be upset," said Harry. "I don't know how else to convey that to you."

Draco opened his mouth, then shut it and took a deep breath. Noticing the spots of color high on his cheeks, Harry was content to wait. It sounded as though Draco was about to say something that wasn't easy for him, and he had always needed some time and preparation before he did that.

"I hate this," he said, in a voice low and passionate enough that Harry felt his temperature jump. "I just—there's nothing I can _do_, Harry. Haven't I changed enough? Isn't there a point at which I'm allowed to do as I like, because—because what else can I do or be?"

"Changing never stops, Draco," Harry said. "Maybe it could, if there was nothing about you that ever hurt you or irritated other people. But this irritates me. I can keep leaving during the arguments. I don't like to, but I can do it. Or you can change. Or we can work on this together."

Draco blew his breath out again, and considered his words carefully. Harry was glad of that. More of the wounds between them had come of ill-considered language and snapped insults than anything else.

"I suppose that's true," he said at last, with supreme reluctance. "But do we have to talk about it right now?"

"You would rather do something else?" Harry asked, and had to grin as Draco abruptly rolled and pushed him flat on his back.

"Yes, _damn it_," Draco snarled. "I've missed being able to talk with you like a normal human being, but I've also missed having sex, Harry." He bent and pressed his lips against Harry's firmly enough that Harry opened his mouth without protest, and he sighed slightly as their tongues tangled together.

He enjoyed it, but he could keep his enjoyment of it from taking him over and making him desperate for Draco's touch. Maybe that was the meaning of what he'd learned after fighting the basilisks. He could work to keep things in balance, now, and for him, work still came before pleasure.

But pleasure had its place, and so he lay kissing Draco, and willingly shed his robe when Draco tugged at it, silently asking him to, and gasped when Draco took him in his mouth.

There was—this was far from being a solution to their problems, Harry thought, his head thrashing as thoughts and sensations spun through his head and danced around each other. But it was a start. And at least Draco hadn't exploded into screams, and Harry hadn't felt the need to Apparate away before the conversation was finished.

And at least they might be able to work on finding a way forward now—

Draco _sucked_ hard, and Harry arched his back with a gasp. He was babbling nonsense. He didn't care. It was nonsense that both of them needed to hear, right now.

He could do this. He'd learned to stop thinking he couldn't, and that might be the most valuable thing in the world right now.

Not the most urgent, though, which was the need to experience more of what Draco was doing, and then just a little more, and then a bit more.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

They had talked long and often before they'd chosen the site for the new Ministry. In London, near Diagon Alley, would have been ideal, but Harry had said time and time again that he didn't fancy showing off any magic in front of Muggles, even accidentally, given the oaths that he'd sworn to with the International Confederation of Warlocks. So, in the end, they had chosen a magically protected valley in Wales, rather like Woodhouse, but without magic _quite _as sentient, and which Harry had purchased from its owners instead of taking by force of war.

Snape rehearsed the facts over and over again in his mind to keep himself from being distracted by Regulus's warm breath on the back of his neck. Why the other man insisted on standing right behind him was a mystery of the universe that Snape didn't think he was meant to figure out.

He watched as Harry nodded to the crowd watching him and strode out to the pile of rocks quarried and chosen to form the sides of the new Ministry's walls. He'd made a short speech welcoming everyone and thanking them for their support of the new Ministry. Snape wondered that his son couldn't see the greedy gleams in most of their eyes. They didn't care about the ideals that the Ministry supposedly stood for, or even the dead people this building would in part be a memorial to. They just wanted to have pieces of the power and positions that its rising promised.

Harry wanted to form a new world with this Ministry, but Snape didn't think he would get one. The people making up that world were the same self-centered and selfish wizards and witches as ever, after all.

"Severus," Regulus whispered, and Snape had to work hard to suppress the urge to shiver.

"_What_?" he said, in a tone so cutting that he hoped Regulus would give it up.

"Have you thought about what's going to happen after the war?" Regulus sounded genuinely interested, which Snape thought all the more bizarre as Harry began to raise the stones. Why wasn't he paying attention to the magic going on in front of them, a feat that none of them had ever seen and would probably never see again? "I can't imagine that you'll return to Hogwarts and teach."

"And why _not_?" Snape sniped. The first rocks were hovering off the ground now, swinging about as though clutched by the strands of an invisible spiderweb. Snape could, just, feel the immense power of the magic that ran through them, to support that much weight, and so delicately. "Do you think I'm that bad at teaching, that whoever the new Headmaster was would not rehire me?"

"Severus." Regulus was patient, and when would he learn that Snape didn't like to be called by his first name? "You're the Headmaster now. You could appoint someone else to teach Potions, and take care of the children. But I don't know if that responsibility is really what you want."

"You're right," said Snape. The first blocks were swinging into place now, settling on each other. Harry left empty spaces in the middle of them, delicately arched windows. Should Voldemort attack this Ministry in the same way he had attacked the last, he would not be able to block all the entrances. The windows would provide quick escapes for those who needed them. If Regulus would just leave him alone and let him enjoy this sight, Snape thought, everything would be all right. "I want to brew potions, and look after Harry. _Alone._"

"Bah," said Regulus comfortably. "Draco will be there, and Harry's brother. And you could use some other company, too."

Snape held his tongue until the first tunnel of magic sprang into being around the window, raising gasps from those who watched. Even Snape, who had known this would happen, was faintly impressed. Harry was holding all those stones in place still, maneuvering the current ones into position, and setting up permanent, elegant defenses at the same time. These tunnels would be the means of protecting the escape routes, while at the same time providing many-colored slides to the ground. And since Harry was weaving them so powerfully of his own magic and his own essence, Voldemort couldn't attack them until after the spring equinox.

The final form of the Ministry was truly visible, now that the first window and first slide had emerged as a pattern. And now the enchanted lines of light that marked the plans for Harry to follow sparked to life. The final Ministry would be an enormous tower, Snape thought, built of this strong marble veined with blue and delicate shades of green. Windows everywhere would let the light in, while curved tunnels and staircases embraced the darkness. The symbolism wasn't subtle at all, but then, subtlety would have been lost on the imbeciles around them.

Snape wondered if it was lost on Regulus.

He hissed, as he strained his eyes to watch the stones high above the ground rotating like lazily circling birds, "It would please me if _you_ left me alone, Regulus, at least."

Regulus's hand came to rest on his shoulder, unexpected and warm and making Snape jolt forward.

"You don't believe that," Regulus breathed.

"I do," Snape said, loudly enough to make the neighbors look over. And Regulus _wouldn't take his hand off Snape's shoulder, _damn him.

"Let me talk to you about this for a little while longer," Regulus proposed, "and then you'll believe me."

Snape glanced tiredly back at him, even as another gasp of awe rose up from the throats around them. "When are you going to give it up, Regulus? I am not loveable. I am not worth pursuing."

Regulus dipped his head and gave him a kiss on the back of the neck. Snape closed his eyes, and wondered where the dizziness spinning his head around had come from.

"Let me change your mind about that," Regulus whispered.

And when would Snape find the _heart_ to say no, and when would Regulus find the _wits_ to believe him?

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

It made sense, didn't it? It just made sense.

Peter hadn't been in the habit of hiding from the truth about himself since his seventh year at Hogwarts. Sure, he'd been in the habit of hiding from the truth about other people, or he would never have spent twelve years in Azkaban under the delusion that the people who had sent him there cared about him. But himself—himself, he knew, and he knew the risks he took and what they would cost him. And he'd always been willing to pay the prices.

And now—well, now, he had clearer eyes, and he could see other people.

He saw other people busy, and healthy, and happy. Hawthorn was beginning to thrive again now that she was free of the werewolf curse. She deserved a life that would be happier than the one she'd had so far.

Lucius had not changed that much after Narcissa died, except in quiet ways. He would never give up his life willingly for Harry, Peter knew that much. Of course, there was the fact that one could decide to die for the Horcrux instead of for the person trying to destroy the Horcrux, but Lucius wouldn't do that, either. The man was simply too accustomed to thinking in terms of gambits for power, not sacrifices.

Severus and Regulus had each other, now, or would as soon as Regulus overcame Severus's stubbornness. Peter knew he could do that. He'd seen Regulus do the impossible on a daily basis when they were all Death Eaters together, back when the world was even darker than it was now.

Henrietta—well, Peter had found and read one of her letters to Evan Rosier once, a mixture of poetry and wooing that would draw that madman close if anything could. It was blindingly obvious what Henrietta planned to do, especially the way that she sometimes looked at Peter with kind, wild eyes, as if she understood. So Peter nodded to her, and they saluted each other in odd ways, and left each other alone.

Draco or Connor was capable of dying for Harry, but Harry would break if he lost either of them. It could not be allowed to happen.

There were so few other people close to Harry, so few others who could be trusted. They would die for the Horcruxes, they would die for Harry, but they couldn't be counted on _not to hesitate._ The death they pictured was death in battle, where they didn't know it was coming beforehand, not this premeditated sacrifice.

All of which made Peter the best choice to destroy Ravenclaw's wand, really.

He loved Harry. He had felt sorry enough for him, and determined enough to right the wrongs done to both of them, to break out of Azkaban and go to him, but it had long since become more than that. Harry was someone else who had lived through shadow and out of shadow and into light. He had given Peter strength when he needed it, strength for both his own life and to handle the challenges that healing and helping Harry flung at him. He could do this.

And Peter had no truly close friends, or someone in love with him. He was one of Harry's allies, and the former Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, and, in some ways, the last of the Marauders. And nothing other than that, so he could more easily let go of his grasp of life. It was not that _no_ one would miss him, but he would cause less of a hole by his passing than many others would.

Sometimes, he thought Harry knew what he planned, the way he watched him with dark, sober eyes, and was mature enough now not to let the knowledge plague him.

Other times, he was sure Harry had no idea, or he would have interfered, nosily and messily.

And it _would_ be interference. Peter had decided, of his own free will, to become the sacrifice, to take his own life, and that fulfilled all the requirements for breaking the Unassailable Curse other than the actual death itself.

Peter leaned his head back, and breathed.


	76. Top Heavy

**Chapter Sixty-Two: Top-Heavy**

Connor heard a squeal, and charged out of the side-corridor where he'd been hiding, head lowered. Parvati uttered another gasp, skittered ahead of him, and then began to run. Connor locked his trotters in place briefly so that he could stand still and adjust his momentum, and raced after her.

His hooves clicked and rustled on the stone in quite a different way, he was vaguely aware, than they would if he were running through a forest. His tusks occasionally scraped a wall, but Connor was sure that someone, Regulus or Harry, could heal the gouges in the stone that they left. Gouges in things weren't as important as gouges in people, anyway.

He turned a corner, and found Parvati standing with her wand pointed at him. Connor slowed to a stop and snorted menacingly. He realized the bristles around his shoulders were standing out like a lion's mane, and was delighted. He uttered another snort, and then deliberately reached out with a hoof and pawed once, twice, a third time.

Parvati broke and ran again. Connor squealed in turn and lowered his head, focusing on her legs. He would see how close he could get before care for her forced him to stop and not use his tusks.

As it turned out, he didn't get that close. Parvati had cast a glamour over a dip in the floor, a small hole that was meant to provide light and air to the room below. Connor's forelegs plunged into it, and the weight of his head made him tip further forward. In seconds, he hung trapped, kicking and snorting, his hind legs flopping helplessly on the floor just above the hole.

Parvati paced back towards him, turning her wand in her fingers, smile smug. "Need some help, Connor?" she inquired sweetly.

As it turned out, he did. Connor could change back, but he knew his legs would slip into the hole if he did so, and he'd probably tumble straight through and to the floor below. And he didn't fancy breaking his leg, or, for that matter, his back. He gave her a plaintive look.

"Say you're sorry for chasing me." Parvati was tapping her wand against the heel of her hand now, and trying, very obviously and very hard, to keep from smiling.

Connor blinked at him. She was the one who had asked him to chase her!

She shook her head and clucked her tongue when he gave her his incredulous look. "No, Connor, not fair. You _scared_ me. You say sorry politely, or I won't help you now."

Connor cast his eyes down and uttered several soft, wet snorts that he hoped conveyed the meaning well enough, since he couldn't use words. He felt her hand descend and smooth over his face for a moment, pushing aside bristles and short dark fur.

"_Wingardium Leviosa_," said Parvati, and lifted him out of the hole, setting him gently on his trotters beyond it. Then she paused and eyed him suspiciously, as if realizing that he could chase her again, and leap the hole now that he knew it was there. Connor changed back to human instead, to show good faith.

Parvati at once came over and hugged him. "Thank you," she whispered against his ear. "It helps me forget my loneliness."

Connor nodded and smoothed a hand up and down her back. Padma had decided to go back to their parents that morning. Connor understood why; she'd originally left them for Luna, and now that Luna was dead, she didn't feel as if she had to stay merely because of her sister and the war. There was nothing that she could contribute specifically to the war effort, anyway, while Parvati felt as if she could. Parvati had argued, but hadn't been able to hold her sister back.

"As long as I'm here, you'll never be lonely," Connor promised, and ran his fingers through her hair. She tilted her face back for a kiss, and he was more than happy to give it.

But the back of his mind ran along on dissatisfied tracks. Now that he'd mastered his Animagus form, he needed something else to do. And comforting Parvati, as nice as it was, wasn't enough to take up his day. She needed some time by herself, too, after all, so he couldn't be with her every single moment.

Owls _had_ arrived from the Light members of Harry's new alliance and new Ministry, asking to meet the Light wizard closest to Harry. But Connor had been reluctant to accept the invitations. He knew so little of pureblood politics that he'd probably offend someone accidentally and cost them the war. Or he'd make a fool of himself, and that would make people think _Harry_ could be taken advantage of, if he sent such foolish messengers, and that would cause unnecessary conflict and friction. But Connor wasn't sure how much he could learn, either. It wasn't as though anyone had time to teach him the dances right now.

And then a thought occurred to him, and he smiled.

"What is it?" Parvati asked curiously, pulling back to stare at him.

"Just an idea I had." Connor kissed her cheek. "I was remembering that I have a twin, too, and I haven't asked for anything from him in quite a while. I think he can help me be more useful."

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry gave him a strange look. "I'm not entirely sure that the Switching Potion actually works like that, Connor," he said slowly. "One can transfer pain, I know, the way that it was once used to transfer labor pains when the mother would have been overwhelmed by them. And one can transfer emotions, or curses lodged in the flesh, or dreams, the way that we did when you took Voldemort's visions for me. But knowledge? I don't know if you could learn the pureblood dances that way."

"_Please._" Connor couldn't believe he didn't see how useful this would be. "It's not as though the knowledge would leave you while you educated me. It—"

Harry had raised his eyebrows, which meant he was about to interrupt. "Of course it does, Connor. That's why it's called the _Switching_ Potion. It doesn't leave behind a residue. For the length of time the switch lasts, it's supposed to remove the emotions, or pain, or whatever they are, entirely from the head and body of one person and put them into the head and body of another person. I wouldn't know the pureblood dances while you had them."

Connor gnawed his lip. He had to admit he hadn't thought of that. But then he perked up. There was an obvious solution, and Harry was a bit dim-witted for not seeing it, wasn't he? "Then just lend the knowledge to me for the duration of one meeting with your Light allies," he said. "You won't need them for just a few hours, would you? You're surrounded by people who love you and won't expect you to be on your best behavior. But the Light allies will expect that from _me._"

"I suppose that might work." Harry sounded doubtful. "I'm willing to try, at least. But remember, I can't recall reading that the Switching Potion was ever used to transfer knowledge."

Connor beamed. "That's all right. If you try, and it doesn't work, well, it doesn't matter. I'll just keep avoiding them. But if we try and it _does_ work, then I can learn something, and even when the knowledge is gone, at least I'll remember what it felt like. Maybe that will tell me what books I should study. Just as long as we can work on this, Harry?"

He looked, and saw an answering spark in his brother's eyes. For a moment, it went out, as though Harry had remembered something, but when Connor asked, Harry just shook his head and said, "Nothing. Thinking, that's all."

That was _such_ a lie. But Connor couldn't help people who insisted on being liars this way. Harry would have to be the one who came around and decided to tell Connor what he was anguished about. "We need hippogriff feathers, don't we?" he asked. "And two red stones. One of them with your magical essence, and one of them with mine."

Harry nodded. "I'll be the one brewing the potion, of course," he said.

Connor shrugged. Being good at potions had never mattered to him, not when the man teaching it was a sadistic wanker. Being good at things you hated was for Hermione, not him. "Of course you will. But I can help gather some of the ingredients, and you need me to hold the chip of red stone and concentrate on what I want to do."

"And it still may not work," Harry added, but this time a different kind of spark had lit his eyes, the pleasure of experimentation and adding to his knowledge. "But we'll try it, and see if it does."

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

The potion had worked. And carrying all that extra knowledge in his head was an unpleasant experience, not that Connor would have believed that if someone had told him before he took the potion. It felt as if he had a—a _lump_ on his forehead that other people could see, like a unicorn's horn. He bowed to Cupressus Apollonis, in the way that the rituals said a guest entering an older wizard's house was supposed to, and felt as if the knowledge would slosh over the rim of his head like water from a kappa's hollow.

Cupressus paused, and his fingers briefly flexed. Connor knew that was a sign of uncertainty. He suspected he'd absorbed some of Harry's knowledge of individual people along with the pureblood dances. The request they made of the Switching Potion hadn't been that specific, after all. Connor had concentrated on knowledge that would let him survive the political dances approaching, and the potion probably thought that included perceptiveness and notice of mannerisms as well as the proper depth of bows and what fork to use.

"Mr. Potter," Cupressus murmured. "I thought you had not been trained in the formal pureblood ways?"

"It's true that my parents didn't see fit to raise me that way," Connor said calmly, lifting his head. "Perhaps my father was ashamed of having a halfblood child." _Insult yourself first, show that you're at home with what you are, and that's one weapon that your enemies can't use against you. _"But I have made some effort to learn of my heritage in the years since."

"Only proper for the master of Lux Aeterna, I suppose," Cupressus murmured, eyes locked on his face.

Connor nodded serenely.

"But few traces of this knowledge have shown before," Cupressus said, probing delicately, like the jab of a pike's nose.

Connor let himself chuckle, because the knowledge pressing against his brow said that would be all right. It felt as if the knowledge were right behind his heart-shaped scar, in fact, an even odder sensation than the ones he'd already experienced. "Well, of course they haven't. We wanted to keep it safe and secret until there was a moment when our allies would benefit from knowing that I could dance." He cocked his head. "And, of course, this will encourage you to trust me more, and that might bind you more tightly to Harry's side." This kind of dangerous honesty was expected at gatherings of Light wizards and witches, his new instincts told him.

A genuine smile crossed Cupressus's face, and he gestured Connor ahead of him, into a room covered with windows, mirrors, and small glass decorations that flashed back the light at him. "And why did you Declare for the Light, Mr. Potter, when your brother is so firm in his devotion to both sides?"

Connor consulted the rituals. They told him that such a question would usually be impolite—but when asked of someone who'd given no reason for such insults, it said that the asker respected the guest. Cupressus wanted to know, and was counting on Connor to be adult enough to share his reasons for his Declaration.

"My parents, flawed as they were, managed to give me a set of morals that were worthwhile," Connor answered, as he sat down on one of the white divans at Cupressus's gesture, and then accepted a glass of wine that a woman, probably Cupressus's wife Artemis, handed him. She didn't speak yet, but that was only proper, since Connor was a guest and Cupressus was the most powerful wizard in the room. "Not their extreme idea of sacrifice, of course, though I believed in that until the end of my third year of Hogwarts, when I saw someone make a sacrifice that taught me what _real_ Light was and awakened me from my daze." He took a sip of wine to hide the lump that rose in his throat even now at the thought of Sirius. _He would never have had to do that if I had just paid more attention. _"But other things—compassion, that we share the world with more people than just ourselves, that the future as well as the past is important—stuck with me, and those seem to me to be the essence of Light."

Cupressus smiled slowly. "We could have much to talk about, you and I," he murmured, "many interesting arguments to conduct. But today you are a guest in my house, and, as such, we will not debate." He reached out and touched his wife on the arm, guiding her in front of him. "This is my wife, Artemis. Artemis, Connor Potter."

Artemis made a little curtsey, every movement bespeaking the trained way she'd been taught to move. No one was that graceful naturally. Connor waited until she'd fully risen before he set aside his wine and dipped his head to his knees from his sitting position. It was a profoundly respectful move, and he could feel Artemis's pleasure in it.

"I wondered," said Cupressus, gently guiding his wife back to a divan beside him, "whether you would be amenable to meeting a few more guests?"

"I had expected it," said Connor, and grinned at him around the cup he'd picked up again. "I think there were some invitations waiting for me from the Smiths and other families, after all."

"I think Miriam is quite enough for tonight," said Cupressus, and rose, touching something on his neck. Connor squinted, and caught a gleam of gold. His newly acquired knowledge told him it was a message-medallion, resembling the one that Harry had and could use to call Rita Skeeter. It probably sent a tingle of warmth to Miriam Smith to tell her that Cupressus wished to speak to her. "After all, you already know her son. You should be right at home. And you may come into the true receiving room, now. We call it the Chamber of the Stars."

Connor saw why as soon as he stepped past the doors. The whole room was white, but white in the ethereal manner of moonlight or starlight, without a trace of the blinding golden sunshine that had filled the last room. Chairs sat everywhere, covered in delicate white cloth that Connor couldn't identify. But they were arranged so that they faced the window, which looked on a scene of summer constellations—that much, Connor knew from Astronomy. There was a sense of brooding peace here which relaxed Connor's muscles at once, and which he'd never felt anywhere else.

"This is a room where only our trusted guests, those truly devoted to the Light, can come," said Cupressus, and gestured Connor to a chair at the apex of the pattern the furniture formed, like the pattern of geese in flight. "And I feel that you truly are, young man, though admittedly, we have exchanged few words so far."

Connor felt a tingle of pleasure. This wasn't something that Harry's knowledge could really help him with, since Harry had never been invited into this room and didn't know the history of the chair-pattern or these particular constellations, but he found he didn't mind. He felt as if _he_ had earned this, rather than his brother earning it for him, and it was damn good. He took the seat with earnest grace and dignity, and Cupressus and Artemis sat on either side of him. A moment later, a house elf escorted Miriam Smith into the room.

Connor thought he would have known her for Zacharias's mother even without the introduction. The strong lines around her nose and mouth were the same, and her eyes were high and piercing, a cool hawk's gaze, less merciful than judgmental. But that was all right, he thought, as he stood to greet her. The Light needed hawks, too, along with those who would spare their enemies because they begged nicely.

"Madam Smith," he said, taking her hand.

Miriam examined him as if looking for a sign that he was making fun of her. Connor knew why. Miriam only deserved the formal title if Connor was treating her as the leader of Hope for Light, and she didn't know that Connor would consider her that way.

After a time, however, she seemed convinced that he meant his courtesy; perhaps it was the soft, reverent kiss he pressed to the back of her hand. She thawed visibly, and gave him a slow nod, as if to say that he would do, then gestured him back towards his seat, taking the one on the other side of Cupressus.

"What would you say the place of the Light is in our new world, from your point of view, Mr. Potter?" she asked.

The dances told him to be cautious. But they also encouraged dangerous honesty, exceptions to the rules that were made when emotions were strong. Connor thought he knew the true difference between Light and Dark pureblood dances, now. The Dark dances could be altered or broken when the person doing it thought the risk worth the gain in power or prestige it would produce. Light wizards and witches would do it to give other people more of a voice in the conversation, unbound by convention, or to show how much they respected and admired them.

Given that, it was easy to meet Miriam's eyes and say, "I think that we'll have exactly as much of a place as we're willing to work for."

Cupressus and Miriam exchanged a flickering look so quick that Connor might have missed it without Harry's perceptions behind his eyes. Then Miriam said, "That is—interesting, Mr. Potter. I would have expected something more diplomatic from you, something more loyal to your brother."

And so she took a risk of her own, and left the road open. Connor could retreat and modify his words, or accept the chance, keep pressing ahead.

Connor chose to keep pressing ahead. He knew that Miriam Smith had been a Hufflepuff, because Zacharias, of course, had _had_ to brag how every recent descendant of Helga went to her House. It was possible that she didn't understand the way that a Gryffindor nearly always thought the risk worth the taking.

"I love my brother," he said. "But I know his shortcomings, and one of them is that _he_ doesn't understand nearly as much of Light history as he should, either. He is more than happy to welcome Light participation in his political endeavors. But he doesn't think like someone to whom the allegiance is important, because to him it's _not_ more important than the Dark. So, to counteract the influence of Dark wizards—including, I'm sorry to say, in corners where Harry won't think to look for it, because he can be naïve about things like bribery and corruption—we'll have to keep alert. Not break the alliance, of course, but show that we're committed to both our side _and_ it. And that's actually an advantage for us, since we're more used to thinking in terms of cooperation than most of the Dark wizards are."

"Very interesting," Cupressus said, his eyes half-lidded. "Then you think Light-Dark conflicts will still happen?"

"Of course." Connor waved a hand. He didn't know if these words sprang mostly from himself, or from a combination of his knowledge and Harry's, and he didn't truly care. He was enjoying himself too much. "Sooner or later, a time will come when Harry's defeat of Voldemort is ancient history. That won't stop another Dark Lord from trying to rise, even if it doesn't happen for a few generations after this one. Rather than relying on stories to stop Dark-Light conflicts in the future, we'd be better advised to set up laws and traditions and rituals right now that will last to our children and beyond and can be binding. We have a unique chance, with the Ministry fallen. We should use it to its fullest, not get involved in petty arguments."

"You are considerably wiser than I thought you were, Mr. Potter," Miriam murmured. "I am glad to see that at least one of Harry's closest advisers is on the side of the Light."

Connor beamed at her, and ignored the impulse in his head that pointed out he couldn't be like this all the time, because Harry would have to drink the other half of the Switching Potion when he went back to Silver-Mirror and take up the knowledge again. He tended to handle things as they came up. This had been a spur-of-the-moment plan, and it was working well. If something arose in the future that required knowledge of dances and Light psychology like this, he would figure out another way to achieve it.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

"Connor? Can I talk to you?"

Connor couldn't actually identify the voice before he turned, which was unusual; even with as many people as were in and out of Silver-Mirror these days, he had thought he knew them all. But he understood when he turned and saw Michael Rosier-Henlin jogging up the hall behind him. If Michael had spoken to him since he awakened, Connor couldn't remember it.

"Michael." Connor nodded, and tried to restrain the thoughts of the knowledge in his head, which was insisting that Michael had acted in bad faith as a sworn companion. Yes, he probably had, but Connor wasn't Harry, no matter how much he might think like him right now, and some people just weren't meant to be sworn companions. It wasn't a horrible fault that Michael had failed at it.

"I wanted to know if I could talk to you, sometimes," Michael said, halting in front of him and panting as if he'd run a long way. He had a pale, tired face, Connor thought, but he didn't think that was the aftermath of nightmares. He knew what that was like too well. Right now, he just looked as if he lay awake all night worrying.

"Why?" Connor asked. "We're not friends, and I'm not even really friends with your brother." Harry had Owen Rosier-Henlin working on ways to fit pureblood Dark ritual into the Ministry. Connor understood that right now better than he had this morning, but he didn't think it was interesting.

"I know that," Michael said, and shoved his hands into his robe pockets, and bowed his head. "I just—I suppose it's nothing. I felt as though you were the person who could understand me best." His ears flushed red. "But it's not important, and I'm sure that you have things to do." He turned hastily away.

Connor called after him, and that wasn't Harry's compassion, just his own. "Wait! What do you mean, understand you?"

Michael hesitated, then turned around and spoke very quickly, as if he had decided that, since he was going to expose his heart, he should do it all at once. "Well, I'm a younger twin, and I failed at being a sworn companion, and because I was antagonistic towards Harry no one trusts me with responsibility. And you're a younger twin, and you had responsibility taken away from you, but you've done well with it, and Harry trusts you, and _everyone_ trusts you, and—I wanted to know how you did it, that's all, how you got forgiven." He flushed again, obviously humiliated. "But I know that—"

"I'd like to talk to you," Connor said quietly.

Michael stopped and blinked. "Really?"

"Yes." Connor nodded. He could feel interest stirring in him. He liked helping people, and this was really the first time he'd ever had a chance to help a person with a problem like this. It wasn't as though the Yaxley twins had ever approached him and asked for help in being the younger twin of a more educated and famous older brother, after all. "And I understand what you mean about being alone. That was the way I felt at the end of my third year and the beginning of my fourth at Hogwarts."

Michael once again turned crimson, and raked a hand through his hair. "I suppose it seems pathetic, someone at eighteen asking for help in things you figured out when you were thirteen," he muttered.

"It was _hard_ work," Connor assured him, mind going back to those days immediately after Sirius's death when he was simultaneously determined to change himself and determined to do it without leaning on Harry. "I would have welcomed help then. And I've never really had a chance to talk to someone about it. I'll help you, if you'd like. You'd be helping _me_, by listening."

Hesitantly, Michael nodded. "Tomorrow morning, then? I mean, if you don't have anything else to do then."

Connor grinned, looking forward to the prospect of talking to someone who wasn't Parvati, Peter, or Harry. "Sure! Meet you in the kitchen after breakfast? I don't think many people come in there during the early part of the morning. Harry always holds his meetings in the study now."

Michael's face did darken at the mention of Harry, but Connor had felt the same way when he was struggling to overcome his training. Then he smiled and said, "Sounds good. See you later, Connor." He waved at him and walked on up the corridor, a slight spring in his steps that hadn't been there a short time before.

Connor went on his way to the library where Harry would be waiting with the other half of the Switching Potion, well-pleased with himself. He liked it when _he_ could make a difference, and not just his status as Harry's brother.

He slowed to a stop outside the library, because Harry was—shouting at someone. That was unusual. Harry was calm almost all the time, and when he wasn't, it seemed that he had the influence of the pureblood dances to give him a way to restrain his temper.

_And right now, he doesn't have them, since they're in your head._

His skin tingling with a premonition of disaster—how in the world _would_ Harry react without part of his training?—Connor slid his head around the corner and peered cautiously into the library.

Harry stood in front of a table spread with maps, his arms folded and his magic writhing about his shoulders and head in a set of black, cold spikes that reminded Connor of his own bristles as a boar. Draco stood in front of him, face blotchy, but pale except where the hectic color showed.

"Take that _back_," Draco hissed.

Harry closed his eyes as if trying to calm himself down, but Connor could see already that it wouldn't work. It never did when the pulse was beating in his brother's throat that way. And, sure enough, words slipped out a moment later, sounding as if forced out between Harry's teeth, but there nevertheless.

"I want to. But I am so _tired_, Draco, of the way that you never seem convinced I love you no matter what I do! We have sex, and you want me to talk to you. I talk to you, and you want me to make you promises. I make you promises, and you're convinced I'm going to break them. And then I _have_ to break them, and you accuse me of being a selfish, self-centered prick—"

"Sometimes, that's what you _are!_" Draco shouted. He looked half-surprised. Connor supposed that he hadn't got this far in an argument with Harry before, because usually by this point Harry had walked away or tightened himself into a rational state of mind. But he couldn't right now, because his rational state of mind was with Connor. "And don't you accuse me of being the only problem here. You know that I ask for perfectly reasonable things from you, you always knew that I was going to ask them, and then you act like they're surprises—"

"And you knew this was going to be a war, and you're asking me to abandon it for you!" Harry shouted.

"I'm asking you to treat me like a person!" Sparks of wandless magic were leaping around Draco now. Connor cautiously drew his wand, just in case Draco set something on fire and he had to put it out, but he didn't plan to interfere unless something like that happened. This was probably a fight that Draco and Harry had needed to have. "You're more important than the war to me, Harry. Can you honestly say the same thing about me?"

Harry threw up his hands. The spikes shifted to accommodate them, and then rushed backward as his shoulders seemed to sink into his spine. "If I said it honestly, would you believe me?"

Draco snarled at him.

"Yes, you are more important to me than the war," Harry said. "It feels like you are. Is that what you want me to say, Draco?" He fell silent for a moment, biting his lip, and Connor could see the emotions fighting in his eyes. They won out. "But I _have_ to fight this war. If I don't, I'm more evil than Voldemort is."

"I'm not asking you to give up fighting the war," Draco said. His voice had deepened again, losing the high pitch it had had when Connor first heard him yelling. "Just pay more attention to me."

"I do! When you ask for it."

"And _that_ is the problem, Harry." Draco leaned forward and made a motion as if poking Harry in the stomach, though he wasn't silly enough to actually come closer. "Why don't you offer me comfort, companionship, talk, what I need, when I don't ask for it? Why does it always have to be right after I've been traumatized, or because I ask? I do it for you all the time. And then you accuse me of whinging."

"I'll never be able to love you the way you want," Harry hissed, with an edge of Parseltongue to the words. "I wasn't raised for it, wasn't trained for it—"

"That's just an excuse!"

"It's the _truth!_" The black spikes abruptly expanded into a corona of red and golden light around Harry's head and shoulders. "I don't know what I'm fucking _doing_ half the time, Draco! And then I do something, and it's wrong, and I do something else, and _that's_ wrong—"

"I've tried to tell you what I want! I don't think you need to be perfect!"

"Maybe not, but it seems like it."

"Well, that's _not true._" Draco folded his arms. "You're the one who's mistaking me now, Harry."

"I _always fucking am!_" Harry turned his back on Draco this time, but kept speaking over his shoulder, as if he couldn't bear to leave the fight completely alone. Connor thought that was a hopeful sign. Maybe. "I know it's not true, Draco, everything's not true and my perceptions are always mistaken, but it feels as if I'm always putting too much or too little effort into this, you want more spontaneity and then you want more planning—"

"I could do with some more _attention._"

"And how much is enough?" Harry yelled, and turned back again as if drawn with a magnet. His hair was on fire. Connor didn't think he noticed. "I _don't know how to do this!_ I never _have!_ There's no dance for it, there are no rules, or if there are, they change every time we talk—"

"You don't need _rules_," Draco said.

"There's the request for spontaneity." Harry looked simultaneously on the edge of tears and horrified at himself for being there.

"You don't need them," Draco repeated, an undertone of bitterness in his voice. "I thought you understood that, at least. I tell you when I'm happy, Harry. Isn't that enough? How much reassurance do you _need_?"

"Evidently, a lot more than I get, given that I'm still getting everything wrong," Harry whispered.

"I just—I just wish you would give me more, that you'd be committed to helping me for my own sake, because you want to, and not because you think that you have to do certain things, or that courting couples do certain things." Draco let out an angry, half-whistling breath. "I'm so low among your priorities that you don't even care how to figure out what I want."

"And every time I try, you say it's wrong!"

"Not _every_ time, you're exaggerating—"

"And _so are you!_" Harry waved his arms around as if he were directing a concert. "I _do_ think you're important to me, Draco. But I don't know how to express it, because the means I choose to do so aren't sufficient! Do you have any idea how exhausting it is to keep trying and never make any progress? Obviously, because you think that I don't love you, don't value you, I've made _zero_ progress. And there's nothing I can do, nothing I can yield—"

"I don't want you to give up the war." Draco hissed again. "Weren't you listening to me, Harry? I already _said_ that!"

"Then what _do _you want?" Harry shouted.

Draco checked at that. He took a few deep breaths, then said, "For you to value me."

"I do." Harry's eyes were intent on his face.

"For you to show it."

Harry's jaw tightened. "How?"

And Draco exploded again. "You should be the one deciding that, Harry, not me! If I have to tell you, it's not what I want."

Harry just stared at him, then said, so softly Connor could hardly hear him, and wondered if Draco could, "And everything I decide on to demonstrate it is wrong, not what you want, and if I don't show it, then that's wrong, too. Can—can you help me, Draco, please? Because I _don't know how._"

"No, Harry." Draco turned away and stalked to the doorway. "This is something that you need to figure out on your own, because I'm tired of constantly helping you, protecting you from yourself, from your mistakes. You'll need to decide how to make it up to me."

Harry leaned his head back and shut his eyes, breathing shallowly. Connor stepped fully into the room. Draco started and gave him a nasty look.

"Eavesdropping because your own life isn't exciting enough, Potter?" he sneered.

"Eavesdropping because it's rather hard to ignore such an astonishing display of idiocy from the both of you," said Connor, because he could, and because it felt good to have them gape at him as if he'd turned into a dragon, and because it was true. "Both of you want to never make a mistake again, and everything to be perfect, and it's never going to _happen_, you know? Harry will always be broken and scarred in some ways, and Draco, you'll always be a whiny little prat."

"How _dare_ you—"

"Oh, yes, Malfoy, that's an incredibly original line," Connor said with an eyeroll, and then stalked across the library to the table that held the vial with half the Switching Potion still in it. He pressed it into Harry's hand, and Harry swallowed nervelessly. A moment later, Connor felt the knowledge leave his mind like snow melting, and Harry shut his eyes and grimaced. Connor turned around with a shake of his head. "I may not be completely right, but I know more than either of you do."

"You don't know shit," Draco snarled at him.

"Remember the bit about being a prat," Connor told him, and walked away, shaking his head. _Merlin, they are both such children sometimes. _


	77. Interlude: As Sleep That Lies By Death

This Interlude's title is from Swinburne's "Laus Veneris": "So lie we, not as sleep that lies by death,/With heavy kisses and with happy breath…" The poem's title itself means "Praise of Venus."

**Interlude: As Sleep That Lies By Death**

_January 17th, 1998_

Have you answered the question I asked you yet, Evan, Evan, my Evan?

I did not think so, or you would have written me back before now. Let me remind you of the question, in case you have forgotten, and tell you the legend again—though since you know the poet I am thinking of, you already know the legend. But you need the story again, to know the places in which we stand.

Long ago, when she lost her power over the hearts of men, Venus, goddess of love, did not perish, but was driven underground, to dwell beneath a hill. There, her world was still as it had been, hot and heavy with the breath of sleep and desire, but she went no more above the surface, and walked no more under the sun. The light came from the shining of her hair, of her fair skin, of her incomparable eyes. For the ruin that the Muggles' Christianity brought down could make her a shadow, but it could not destroy her, any more than it could bring down the sun and the moon and the dark between the stars.

To Venus came a Christian knight, Tannhäuser, who did not believe in the legend, but who found her, and who fell down before her, and kissed her feet. He was her lover for a year, and lived marked with her kisses, tangled in the embrace of her serpents. So your poet says, Evan, and though I believe in my own ways, if it did happen, that is the way it would happen.

One day, he desired the sunlight, and, desiring, came forth from the hill, and, desiring, rode to Rome. There, he prayed for redemption. But his great heavy-crowned leader said that Tannhäuser would be a Christian again only when the leader's staff bloomed. Tannhäuser rode away again in sorrow.

And then the staff bloomed, heavy cream-like flowers with golden centers, drooping blossoms, blooms breaking off under their own weight, and filling the air with a perfume like burning incense. The knights rode hot after Tannhäuser, to bring him back, but he had vanished within Venus's hill. He never returned to the sunlight again, but sank into desire, and there stayed.

Tell me, Evan, tell me true, as you think of that legend: Who won the battle for Tannhäuser's soul?

You know the legend. You know the poem. Poetry burns in your blood. But more than legends or even poetry, you know desire, Evan. It clouds your head like the perfume of the flowers clouded the Muggles', desire to kill, to revenge yourself, to rape, to hurt, to make others listen to your songs as you slit their throats.

But look into the legend, Evan, and look into your own desire, and tell me, if I choose to reject you, that you will have any more choice than Tannhäuser would have, did Venus choose to set him outside her hill. Who holds the power here? Who desires, and who is the source of the desire?

I may yet choose to reject you, Evan, and turn all the sunlight of your world to blood.

_Henrietta Bulstrode._


	78. Circumambulation

**Chapter Sixty-Three: Circumambulation**

Harry pulled his head slowly out of the Pensieve, and chewed his lip for a moment, thinking. Then he shook his head. No, his memories of the fight had told him nothing useful. He became so angry when he heard Draco's words, and so ashamed when he heard his own—

Of _all_ the mornings for Connor to take his self-control away—

--that he made no progress. So he would have to try some other method of figuring out what Draco wanted. Watching his expressions and the gestures he made gave Harry no clues.

Perhaps older memories were the key. Draco had said what he wanted at some points in the past. Harry had thought he'd done a fairly good job of satisfying those wants, only to realize that Draco's dissatisfaction and scoldings had never decreased, and so apparently he'd never done _that_ good a job.

But that didn't mean that Draco's laundry lists of longings in the past were wrong, only the way that Harry had gone about trying to answer them. He pulled another string of memory from his head with the tip of his wand, and watched as it filled the bowl. Then he plunged his head down, and found himself standing in Hogwarts, whole again, watching in silence as two fifteen-year-olds spoke. It had been the weekend after his parents' trial, when he'd gone and talked to Draco because Vera had suggested it would do him good.

And yes, Draco's words about what he wanted were there.

_"I want everything you can give me. All of what you are, Harry. I want to know things you don't even think are important about yourself yet, like what kind of tea is your favorite. I want to know that no one else means as much to you as I do. I want to be the only person you want in your bed. I want to know that you understand the things I believe in even if you don't agree with them. I want you to yell at me without holding anything back, even your magic. I want you to know my moods well enough that you know without my speaking when I need to be held, or fetched a sweet, or left alone. I want to have that kind of closeness to you that depends on choice more than it does need, and makes everyone jealous who sees it. I want sunlight love. I told you that, once, last year."_

Harry pulled his head slowly out of the Pensieve, shaken and feeling as though someone had punched him in the stomach. Chills raced up his spine and ended up coiling in his belly. He couldn't even have said why he was so upset if someone asked him.

Well. That was a lie. Of course he could. He had never been _that_ good at hiding from himself, only at not taking certain actions.

_He wants—he wants barriers broken. He wants the kind of no-holds-barred emotion that I usually only show him during the joining rituals. He wants all these little, small things._

_Why?_

That was the question Harry kept running into. And that wasn't even to comment on whether Draco's wants had stayed the same over the two years between now and then. Perhaps he wanted different things now. Perhaps his desires had sharpened, and changed, and left Harry behind, and this memory was valueless.

Harry was not sure what would scare him more: the idea that Draco _had_ changed, so that he still had no idea where to start on repairing the breach, or the idea that he hadn't, which would mean Harry had to give him—this.

_He might not be afraid of what I'm like when I'm holding nothing back, not even the magic. But I am. I'm like Voldemort in the midst of my hatred, or in the midst of that insane Dark rage. I'm like I was with the wild Dark, so committed to achieving what I want that the method I have to use to get there is nothing to me._

_I don't know if I can do what he wants. When it terrifies me, when it could hurt others, can I do it?_

And that was, perhaps, the main question he had to answer, though he had assumed it would be about what Draco wanted. And he couldn't answer it all at once. Harry took the memory out of the Pensieve, put it back into his own head, and went away to think.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Cupressus stood in one of the windows of the new Ministry and closed his eyes.

He could never have done this in the old building. For one thing, _that_ had been underground, far away from the presence of wind and sun that made this one so beautiful, so full of the light and the Light. For another, all the windows had shown false visions, and not the real ones of sky and air and shimmering rainbow wards.

And, finally, that building had been heavy and old with corruption. Cupressus knew the corruption could enter into the new Ministry, too, along with those wizards and witches who would seek to recreate the old order here, but at least they had a chance to discourage it from ever seeding, instead of having to rip it out root and branch.

He turned away from the window and walked into the office that had been set up for him. The walls were decorated with portraits taken from his home, three of them showing his ancestors and one a Muggleborn witch who had turned to the Dark and been the fiercest opponent of the Apollonis line at the turn of the century. Cupressus thought it best to keep his enemies close, as well as to remind himself that just because someone was of the Dark didn't mean that that person was weak or corrupt.

He nodded at Black Jennifer, who just scowled at him and turned her back to stroke the white cat she'd been painted with, and then sat down at his desk. Before him was the first, and most worrying, batch of correspondence: people wanting to know whom they should contact for a job in the Ministry, and accusing Cupressus of holding all the good jobs for himself.

Cupressus gave a thin smile. If they once understood how much arguing went on inside Hope for Light, they would not be accusing him of that.

But he could not help the public perception of the new Ministry by any means than answering and countering the criticism. He slit open the first envelope, and watched, completely unsurprised, as bubotuber pus poured out. He had recognized it from the smell. His enemies would have to be more subtle than that.

He realized his smile had grown more genuine as he thought of the challenges ahead, and didn't try to fight it.

Black Jennifer gave an audible sniff and mouthed a Dark curse at him when he looked in her direction.

"The blessing of the Light on you," Cupressus returned, and began writing an answer to the first letter, politely informing Mortimer Belville that the bubotuber pus had stained his letter so badly that Cupressus couldn't make it out, and, besides that, the Ministry was not in the business of making job offers to traitorous Squibs.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry looked around. Regulus had said that venturing into the world of this painting would affect him strongly, but so far Harry had seen nothing that might do so. The trees above him were black and bare, as though winter had come early here. The ground was like iron, but there was no trace of snow. In front of Harry, a stone path rambled on for a few paces before it sputtered and disappeared as broken rocks among the tree-roots.

And then the world turned sideways.

Harry struggled and scrambled for a hold on the tree-trunks nearest him. _He_ was standing where he was supposed to be, his brain reassured him, even as his eyes tried to tell him he should be falling. He could handle this. His magic crackled around him as Harry fought to adjust his visual perception so that he could still be alert.

And then a golden, monkey-like creature leaped to the edge of a branch along/above him and down/across the air at him.

Harry was starting to see why Regulus had sent him into this Black painting when he said he wanted to test his magic.

Harry sent his magic springing out to catch the monkey in a net of white lightning, but failed. He'd sent the light in the wrong direction, he realized a moment later, when he ended up on his back with the monkey on top of him, trying to bite his throat. His magic hadn't compensated enough to truly adjust to the way he viewed the world.

So it would have to compensate _more_.

Harry envisioned new muscles growing above his arms, spreading into the net, holding the monkey still with main strength. He didn't think he could hurt it, not and maintain the title of _vates_; this might be the magical creature of a strange world, but it was still a magical creature, and probably the one who had managed to disorient him this way, rather than the whole world of the painting changing. That it slipped through his net again and again just meant he had to try harder.

He could feel the pleasure and satisfaction flowing under his skin as the magic flowed; it liked being used. It liked being taken out from under the barriers and set free in the world, much as the Many snakes had rejoiced at being free of their web.

_Is that what Draco wants of me?_

It was an interesting question, but one that he had no time to think on as the monkey-creature turned the whole painting-world completely upside-down, and Harry's mind started screaming that he should fall towards what now resembled the floor of a canyon. But he spread part of his magic in a blinding hood over his eyes, and this time concentrated on the image of the monkey freezing into a statue. It would still have its flesh, its fur, its blood and bone—he didn't intend to turn it into stone or ice—but it would have to be _still._

And then it was, because the magic willed it to be, and they hung there a moment more before Harry found himself on his back under the upright trees, panting, his head aching from how hard he'd fallen. The monkey sat on his chest, its teeth poised a few inches from his throat.

Harry coughed dryly and sat up. When he turned, he saw Regulus behind him, grinning through the doorway in the air that the portrait frame made.

"I trust that you had a good test?" he asked.

Harry smiled. "Yes. Thank you." His magic was content again, rumbling and stretching around him like a great cat, and bouncing in his muscles as if to say _What are we going to do next? _The scope of the task was important—it couldn't be easy—but this wasn't nearly as hard as building the new Ministry had been. Harry was coming to think that it really just wanted _new_ things to do, more than daring or heroic things. It wanted to be free and have its will accommodated, if not completely bent to.

_Like Draco?_

The thought would have to come later, as he had some of the more reluctant Light families to meet with now.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Snape looked up as someone rattled the locked door of his potions lab. The wards he'd put on the door sparked and whispered and carried back an image of the person who stood outside it to him. It was Regulus, and he clutched a spindly green plant that happened to be fairies' breath, the very ingredient that would serve best in the new potion Snape was trying to brew: a truth serum without the drawbacks of Veritaserum, such as the mental haze which identified it to its victim at once.

"I am busy," he called, pitching his voice for impressive effect.

"I know that you're in there, Severus," Regulus said, as if he had heard neither the voice nor the numerous requests Snape had made over the weeks for Regulus not to call him by his first name. "And I have a gift for you. I don't think your potion can go much further, anyway, not without this gift."

Snape ground his teeth. It was true, though, that he needed either fairies' breath or some other plant that resembled it very closely to stabilize and sweeten the brew, and none of the others he'd looked up so far were common, or, for that matter, grew in Britain. Trust Regulus to have access to either a potting or a mysterious Black garden that would contain the exact kind of plant he needed.

"You may have five minutes," he said, and lowered the wards, and opened the door.

Regulus stepped in, looking around admiringly as though he had never seen the potions lab before. He paused, staring hard at one lower shelf. Snape looked at it, but couldn't see anything remarkable about the way he'd arranged the vials there.

"You moved the red potion," Regulus said. "The one that looked like blood with light glowing through it. Did you use it as an ingredient, or was that something that someone drank?"

Snape stared at him. _How in the world does he know the contents of my lab that well?_

And he knew the answer, and he hated the answer, and he was uncomfortable with the answer. Regulus was interested in him, so therefore he paid attention to the details that surrounded Snape, including the details of his surroundings. It was more than even Harry usually did, if only because he tended to be preoccupied with his own thoughts.

It terrified Snape.

"Neither," he snapped. "I moved it to the top shelf." Regulus looked up at the top shelf and started to arch his eyebrows in polite disagreement, but Snape cut in before he could note the obvious lie. "Give me the fairies' breath, since that's what you came here to give me."

Regulus snapped his gaze over to him, grinning. Snape couldn't see why, until Regulus murmured, "That's far from the only thing I'd like to give you," and he realized he'd handed Regulus a perfect straight line.

"I do not understand," Snape said, with all the cold, understated dignity in the world, "why you must do this." He accepted the plant from Regulus, and rubbed it against the cauldron's brim, shaving off several of the leaves. They fell into the potion, crinkling from the intense heat, and partially browning from it as well. Snape picked up the steel rod that he would normally use to stir, thought a moment, and then used the rod to stab and pick up one of the leaves, removing it from the liquid. Five was probably one too many. He set the stem with the rest of the leaves aside, because he didn't need it right now. "There are others you could pursue, Regulus, should you decide that your loneliness needs to be relieved by companionship. I am far from your only choice, but I am the only one who will not be fond of you in return."

"I don't want them," said Regulus comfortably, and leaned against the table on which he'd placed the fairies' breath, now and then twirling the stem. Snape clenched his jaw against the impulse to tell him to stop playing with it. Regulus would manage to turn that into a joke, too, he was sure. "I want you. And I love you. I don't love them. So that _does_ make you rather my only good choice, you see."

Snape finished the last counterclockwise stirring motion he needed to make, and laid the rod carefully down on the table. Then he turned to face Regulus, and said, "I do wish that you would give up this pretense."

That at least set Regulus back on his heels, but he blinked, having the gall to act as if he didn't understand. "Pretense?"

"That you—find me worth pursuing." Snape still could not bring himself to use Regulus's ridiculous word, because that would be giving credence to something he thought should not be given credence to. "It is not true. It does you no credit to claim that it is."

Regulus snorted. "You're an expert on many things, Severus, including potions. But I don't think that you have any right to tell me what's impossible and what's not impossible when it comes to my own emotions." He reached out as if he would touch Snape's cheek, and Snape ducked his hand.

"This is childish," he said, because that ought to get Regulus's attention if nothing else did. "We are both grown men, and you endured years of torture for doing what you believed to be right. You should be above such silly tricks as convincing yourself that you are in love with me, and then trying to convince me of the same."

"I don't joke," Regulus said softly, and the teasing had vanished from his face, and Snape couldn't look at what was left. "Severus—"

Snape waved his wand in a complicated motion, and Regulus found himself set outside the lab, with the door locked and warded against him. Snape turned back to his brewing. He wouldn't permit himself the soundproofing wards he wanted to set up. For one thing, they wouldn't let him hear _anything_ from outside the lab, cries for help from Harry included, but far more important, they would be an admission of weakness, and he was not about to allow that into his life.

He heard the knocks and the calls, but he forced himself to ignore them, and after a time they went away. The tremors in his hands that prevented him from brewing faded within five minutes.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry glanced around nervously. The meeting with the reluctant Light families had gone well, for a certain sense of "well." They still weren't satisfied with one of  
the new Ministry's basic requirements, which was that there be a good proportion of non-human representation on the Wizengamot. They argued that, since so many old Wizengamot members had survived the Ministry's collapse, replacing or adding to them was superfluous.

Harry had hinted, as delicately as he could, about the southern goblins and their control over Gringotts, the centaurs who had said they would fight for him, the Many snakes only he could talk to and whose poison in the eyes couldn't be cured, the northern goblins who owed him a debt, and the enormous power of freed house elves. That had been enough to shut a few of them up, and others had started agreeing that it might be no bad thing to allow a few of the goblins and centaurs, at least, into the replacement for Courtroom Ten.

Then they had left, and now Harry was alone, in a room on Silver-Mirror's second floor too small and oddly-shaped, with close-crowding octagonal walls, to make a good bedroom. It _had_ been a study, but when more people started attending their strategy meetings, they'd had to move their meetings to a bigger room anyway. So Harry was standing now in a room of solid stone with the Black wards on watch in case anyone came up the stairs. Surely he could be alone here if he could be alone anywhere in Silver-Mirror.

So it was only his own fear that held him back.

Harry swallowed. He wished he could have Connor with him, and that Connor could drink the Switching Potion to take Harry's emotional barriers away for a little while. His brother would have done it, and cheerfully. Harry knew how to brew the damn thing now, and respect the restrictions, such as the person who drank the first half of the potion not being able to drink any other potions for five minutes after that draft, and having to drink absolutely no more than half.

But it would have been a cheat. He had to get used to dropping his emotional barriers on his own, and not fearing what would come out, if he was to get close to Draco and heal the biggest emotional sore between them.

_Just—_

Just that, he was terrified of doing this, because in the past, bad things had always emerged. Fury. Insanity. Hatred.

He told his magic to watch and guard, in the end. No matter what might come forth from his mouth and eyes while he tried this experiment, no one could come through a solid barrier of his power and get hurt. The magic, still in a good mood from the way he'd treated it earlier, purred in agreement and then turned the door of the room into what looked like another stone wall with pure power. Harry nodded, and closed his eyes, and sat down so he wouldn't fall down.

Then he began.

This was the opposite of the procedures he'd gone through before, when he sank his emotions in Occlumency pools or froze them as ice, so that he could get through an ordinary day without inconvenient feelings ambushing him. Now he envisioned a hot sun shining in his mind, turning the Occlumency pools to drifting magical vapor. He shivered as a sensation brushed over his skin like cool mist, and then dissipated. And he was left with his emotions high and dry, for the moment.

It felt—well, like a punch to the gut, really. Harry doubled over, gasping. His magic stirred near the door, but he told it sternly that he was in no danger and forbade it to come to him. It settled back on its haunches, cocking its head like a great dog, and watched him closely. Harry was sure that it would arrange to interfere if it _did_ think he was in danger.

Meanwhile, he tumbled through a huge cascade of tiny emotions, which popped up, pricked him like pins, and then vanished back into his mind. His face flushed with irritation and paled with hurt, so regularly he could feel the blood coming and going like a tide in his cheeks. He felt mild humor and tenderness and exasperation and interest and indifference and—

Merlin, how did ordinary people get through the day, feeling like this? It was the same sick-making sensation he'd had yesterday when he realized that he wasn't going to be able to stop himself from snapping at Draco, given that Connor had taken his emotional barriers with him. Harry had _rules_. He knew how things worked when the pureblood rituals were with him, and his Occlumency. And this, this sea of chaos, frightened him.

Yet if he closed himself behind the barriers again, he stood a chance of losing Draco. And anything was better than that, except possibly the loss of Connor.

He gasped and hissed and waited for the flux of emotions to subside. He only grew truly worried when minute after minute passed and they didn't.

Gnawing his lip, Harry thought, _I know that people like Connor and Draco must live this way, since they don't know Occlumency and they never had my training. But Snape doesn't; he uses his pools to close off the emotions that might incapacitate him if he had to live with them from day to day. Why does no one ever care about the way that he uses his emotions, but they care about the way I use mine?_

His cheeks turned red again with the flow of irritation, and he winced when he realized he was grinding his teeth. _Is this really what Draco wants me to do? Is this what he wants from me?_

The memory he'd sent into the Pensieve that morning suggested that not only did Draco want that from him; he wanted _other things like that_ from Harry. A giving of himself, where "himself" didn't include magic and patience and love, all of which Harry had assumed would make Draco happy. Little things, unimportant things, or at least things that didn't matter that much to Harry, though he could respect them as mattering to other people.

_Why?_

Burying his head against his knees as he gratefully restored his Occlumency pools, Harry knew he would make no progress forward until he was able to figure out the reason why.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

"And you just—decided that you were going to change one day?" Michael stared at Connor in evident disbelief. "How do you _do_ that? I've tried, and it's hard. I say that I'm not going to say something stupid when I see your brother or Draco, and I try, but then it doesn't work."

Connor smiled and traced his fingers over the kitchen table, through the wet mark that someone's cup of pumpkin juice had left there. "It was hard," he said. "The hardest thing that I've ever done in my life. The trick is not to mind the difficulty."

Michael bit his lip and shook his head. "I'm not sure that I understand."

"Think of it as—like a heavy load," said Connor, returning to a metaphor that Remus had given him, and which Peter had refined during the summer they spent together in Lux Aeterna. "You're a mule, and you're pulling a cart filled with rocks up steep mountain trails. You _have_ to keep on moving. You can't let yourself tip backwards, or the weight of the cart will catapult you down the mountain, and that would kill you. And you can't stop pulling until you get to the summit, because people are counting on you to pull this. So you set your muscles, and you tug, and you heave, and you strain, and you sweat. And you keep pulling, because _that's_ the way forward. There's no way forward that's not difficult." He shrugged, somewhat embarrassed by the awe in Michael's eyes. "So you get used to the difficulty. The weight never goes away, but it gets less important."

"It's so hard, though, with my own twin ignoring me," Michael whispered.

"Harry did that to me in the beginning of fourth year," Connor said calmly, "until I was chosen for the Tri-Wizard Tournament and he _had_ to worry about me. But I understood. He'd always been devoted to me, and then he found out that that was wrong, and so he gave more of his time to Draco. It was like a recoiling. And I hadn't been very nice to him the year before, about Sirius. Things _had_ to change, and that meant things were strained between me and him for a little while."

"My brother's ignored me for a lot longer than that," Michael whinged. "And for things that aren't my fault, either, for mistakes that I _haven't_ made."

"I thought you fancied Draco?" Connor raised an eyebrow and nobly refrained from commenting that he couldn't see how anyone in the world would fancy Draco. _Love_, yes; that was the only emotion that would make someone put up with the arrogant prat, and it was perfectly obvious to Connor that Harry felt it. But fancying wasn't strong enough to get someone past the cast-iron irritating shell, surely.

"You can't choose who you fancy." Michael crossed his arms and put on a superior look.

"But you can choose to approach them about it, and flirt with them over it," said Connor. _These are lessons that he should have known already. _"You shouldn't have done that. And then you've made things worse by blaming Harry—"

"You don't think it's his _fault_?"

"No," said Connor. "I think it's yours, for making more of this than you needed to make of it, and I think it's Draco's, for first encouraging you and then nearly choking you to death when he should have let you down more gently. And maybe it's Harry's fault for keeping you on as a sworn companion as long as he did, but another part of getting people to forgive you is to blame them for the _right_ reasons. He's not the one who made you fancy Draco."

"He never pays as much attention to him as he should," Michael said softly, clenching his fists. "He still doesn't. And he doesn't pay attention to the little people, either, the ones like my mother and sister who depended on him for protection."

"If you insult my brother, I won't help you," Connor told him.

Michael looked up, eyes wide in what seemed like betrayal. "I thought you wanted to be my friend?"

"Yes, but so far you haven't done anything worthy of being called a friend." Connor rose to his feet, giving him a cool look. "You have to change so that other people will _like_ you, too, you know."

He left the kitchen, and Michael gaped after him.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry paused. He'd come into the kitchen to make himself some toast, but Draco was the only other person in the room, and Harry had avoided being alone with him since their fight.

Sure enough, Draco turned around from putting away the jug of milk, saw him, and immediately bristled.

"Have you decided anything important yet?" His voice was steady and paper-thin as the set of Black knives meant to slice expensive fruit that Regulus had shown Harry and admitted no one in the family had used in the last hundred years.

"One important thing," Harry said, keeping his emotional barriers up and locked tight. Now wasn't the time to let them down. It would be false to end the argument when he still didn't know how to give Draco what he wanted. And more yelling was—not right. "Not the others."

Draco's mouth puckered as if he'd swallowed a lemon. "This is one thing I hate about you," he said, softly, viciously. "Always so controlled. As if you can't bear to step off your pedestal and engage in petty anger like the rest of us mortals."

"I thought you hated it when I got angry," said Harry. His rage and his sorrow were great enough that he could feel his barriers buckling, and this time there was no Connor and no Switching Potion to save him. _Damn it. _He stepped backward, prepared to retreat. He couldn't solve the argument yet, so what was the point of making it fester further?

Draco crossed the kitchen so quickly that he left Harry blinking against what seemed to be a dazzle of afterimages. His glass of milk sloshed as he seized Harry's arm with his free hand and drew him close. This near, Harry could see the lines where his teeth were clenched inside his cheeks, and smell him, the scent of sweat and rage and excitement.

"I hate it with you withdraw from me, treat me like a piece of furniture, treat me like I'm _not there,_" Draco said. "That's what I hate. And you're doing it again, handling me like a child."

"But you also hate it when I get angry," Harry said, and, damn it, his own voice was rising. He had never known anyone else who could do this to him when he intended to keep calm. Not even Connor's ridiculous provocations about Slytherins in third year had managed it. He looked sideways and hissed between his teeth. "I'm trying to understand what you want, I'm trying to give it to you, but I can't—"

His head reeled back. Draco had tried to punch him. Given the angle at which he stood, though, his blow landed somewhere between a backhand and a slap.

Harry _snarled._

His magic broke free from him and galloped around Draco's legs, binding them in yellow manacles. Draco tried to move, toppled over, and had to catch himself on the kitchen table. His eyes were wide with shock as he stared down at his legs.

"Is this what you want?" Harry hissed, stalking around him. "For me to come close to _hating_ you because you won't give me a straight answer? For me to want you to _shut up_, do _anything_ but keep talking? For me to wish that I'd rather be a bird than a human, if being human means dealing with you?"

"Yes."

Harry blinked, caught more off-guard by that than by the strike. Draco's eyes were intent on him now, and Draco was leaning forward, at least as much as he could with his legs locked together like a pillar.

"At least now you're seeing me," Draco whispered.

Harry moved his hand like a blade, cutting through the bonds, and then turned and walked away, his hunger forgotten. His magic and his anger beat in him like twin pulses, and the grand plan he'd worked out—to find what Draco wanted and give it to him—was forgotten in the onslaught of the need to _fight,_ to scream and yell and _hurt_ Draco.

He hated that impulse in himself. It was a cousin of the pleasure he took in inflicting pain on his enemies, and, likewise, not one he wanted to indulge.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Draco moved his legs cautiously, then touched his hand and winced. His knuckles had collided with Harry's cheek, yes, but awkwardly; he'd skinned them. It certainly hadn't made Harry wear the badge of righteous anger he'd imagined when he struck him.

But it had been worth it, both the physical pain and the emotional pain that washed around the center of his chest like warm water carrying chunks of ice.

Harry had been focused _solely_ on him. He hadn't been holding back and treating him as if Draco were fragile and had to be left behind, out of battle, or as if Draco could never see the depths of him because he would think they were frightening or evil. He'd said exactly what he thought for a moment, rather than tempering his words to suit Draco's grief, Draco's mood, and the political needs of the moment. He'd _looked_, and _seen_, and _felt_, and _heard._

It hadn't lasted, of course. The acknowledgement of that need to have Harry look at him had made Harry back up and run.

Draco smiled. He didn't think it was a nice smile, or even a happy one, at least to someone looking at him from outside. That hardly mattered. Harry hadn't hidden himself behind ice walls after all, the way Draco had worried he would manage to after their argument. He wasn't perfectly controlled, and that meant Draco was more _in_ control. He'd begun to think of Harry almost as a statue, someone who could always do the right thing—by his lights—and who had a schedule for times when he talked to Draco, times when he talked to his brother, times when he fought the war or planned the attack on the next Horcrux, and times when he had sex with Draco. And then he'd managed to pierce Harry's perfect little shell twice in two days.

Harry wasn't perfect. He could still come apart at the seams. He could still do stupid things, wrong things. He could still be irritated.

And he would probably be pushed to the breaking point, soon.

Draco could wait a bit longer. He would provoke if he had to, but really, he would prefer Harry to lose control on his own.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry sat on the roof of Silver-Mirror with his eyes closed. Around him, snow settled with a slow, heavy finality.

Tears stung and burned his eyes. He hated that. His chest heaved as if he were going to shout or cry at any moment. He _hated_ that. He wanted to find someone else, like Connor, and scream at him about the unfairness of the universe in general. He _really_ hated that.

Of course the universe was unfair. He'd always known that. What good would complaining about it do?

Of course, he couldn't stay the same he'd always been, and change was a part of life, as he'd explained to Draco so pompously a few days before, never-ending. He hadn't expected to find it so hard, when he knew it so well.

Harry gave in to one impulse, and tucked his head under a folded arm like a bird under its wing when it sheltered from the cold.

He would have to—to break. The image reared in his mind as a cliff he would need to fall down, and hope to Merlin that he was still alive, or at least in a number of closely-scattered pieces, when he reached the bottom.

But he couldn't just yet, because they were going after Ravenclaw's wand in two days' time.

Two kinds of necessities tore at him, and because he didn't think that he could stop them right now, Harry sat there and let them—hating himself all the while for weakness, and near to hating Draco for his part in this, and hating the world for being the way it was.


	79. Intermission: Starlit Meetings

**Intermission: Starlit Meetings With Evan Rosier**

Henrietta stood comfortably under the bare boughs of the trees. Evan had sent her a description of the Apparition location in his latest letter; she had gone even though it could be a trap. She was fairly sure, at least, that he would not try to make her arrive at a place that didn't exist and Splinch herself. That would not be bloody enough, nor satisfying enough, for him.

She stood a little straighter as a shadow moved at the far edge of the grove. The copse was of pines, which meant it still bore greenery this late in the year, and the needles on the ground concealed the sounds of Evan's feet as he walked. For all that, Henrietta had no doubt it was him as she watched him come past the two outer circles of trees into the innermost one. It _would_ be.

He wore a ragged dark cloak starred with snow, and he held a knife in one hand. Henrietta eyed the knife approvingly. It was dark, and so did not show much blood—obsidian. The hilt was silver, which she found a touch dramatic, but then, one could hardly accuse Evan of being balanced and sane.

"Greetings," she said, and watched her breath foam on the air in front of her.

"Henrietta." He walked so delicately, she thought, lifting and lowering his feet like a moorhen trying to pick her way through puddles of water. "I suppose that you find it funny to write to me of Venus and Tannhäuser? I know you are not Venus. You do not keep a hill, and you do not answer the call of your own desire." His eyes met hers, blueberry-dark, but blackberry-shining. He was not amused, she saw. "You have a master. What he requires of you, you do."

"Evan," Henrietta whispered, and knelt, flinging back her long hair from her neck. She felt a snowflake settle in the hollow of her throat, and had to close her eyes at the sensation. It felt so much like a knife-blade. "I serve no master. I am not a _tame_ Slytherin. He who thinks he has me tame to hand would be well-advised to watch out, lest I turn like a serpent and bite him."

He was silent, watching her.

"If you really think I am a pawn and no more," Henrietta whispered, "cut my throat, now. You can, after all."

Evan moved a few quick steps forward, so that he stood just before her. Henrietta gazed up at him fearlessly. She knew that, if he killed her now, all her plans would be for naught. But as she felt the cold pressing against her and the blood beating behind the fragile shield of her skin, she did not care.

The knife came down to rest on her collarbone. Henrietta turned her head and kissed the hilt. The cold made the metal cling to her lips for a long time before Evan pulled the blade away.

"You would let me," Evan said.

Henrietta listened carefully. _Yes._ His voice was steadier than it had been, just as the madness behind his eyes had receded. He had been in decline when she met him in the Forbidden Forest last year. He no longer was. He had changed, and she knew the source of that change. When she looked up, there was someone else behind his eyes.

She was not wrong. She could not be wrong, because she was not.

"Yes," she said.

Nothing about her was a lie. She was fearless, and he knew it, and something in him feared her fearlessness.

But the rest, the part of him that had been there when she raped him, was inexorably drawn, and he leaned down and kissed her, then took his knife and slit her lower lip open. Henrietta licked at the blood, and laughed.

He backed away, never taking his eyes off her, and Apparated just before he reached the pine trees.

Henrietta stretched her arms slowly, exultantly, over her head. Harry would never approve of what she was doing, but Harry would never know, until it was too late. She served no master.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Indigena could not shake the feelings that had overcome her lately. She stood shivering at the edge of her garden, and watched the snow drift down outside the wards, and knew that not all the Warming Charms in the world could make her complacent about heat again.

The world was a sheer black cliff, with broken rocks waiting for her at the bottom. If she fell down the cliff, she would die on the rocks, and she could not forbid that fate and she could not escape it.

She closed her eyes and thought of nothing for a moment, nauseous, dizzy.

When she opened her eyes, Evan Rosier stood at the edge of the garden.

Indigena stumbled back, and then stopped herself, though she shook. She would not flee from him. She had bargained with him before, and escaped with both her sanity and her life. And here she was strong, with the earth straining beneath her feet to be of use to her, and the thorns twitching in their sheaths on her backs.

She lifted them above her head, to make herself even stronger, and demanded, "Why are you here? What do you want?"

Evan stroked a knife he held, obsidian with a silver hilt, and didn't respond. Indigena eyed the knife mistrustfully, wondering why it looked familiar. After a time, she knew. It was such a blade as her Lord had once described when lingering lovingly on torture techniques he'd used in Africa. It was used to joint enemies, to cut out their bones so that the flesh might be more easily made tender and thrown on the fire.

Indigena looked back at Evan's face. And he was smiling sideways, as he usually did, but there was something else in his eyes.

"Where did you get that?" she whispered. "How did you know that?"

"You will never know," he said. His voice had deepened and coarsened, and Indigena could hear an echo in it if she listened. "You will never know because the hound is in the way, and then there is only one of us left. I intend to be the one standing. Take my brother, and welcome to him."

"I have no idea what you mean," said Indigena, and then wondered why she'd said it. It was a ridiculous thing to say. Besides, she had long since decided that she couldn't decipher Evan Rosier's madness, unless she herself had set the plan in motion.

"Of course you do not," said Evan, and his face wrinkled into a smile that was almost kind. "You have not lived in his flesh."

He turned and vanished. Indigena stood there, and wondered if she should go below and tell her Lord about this. But he would still be in a trance, working hard on the one plan that would slowly snare Harry by the equinox without unnecessarily risking more of his power or resources.

And when Indigena turned around, there was a black dog at the other end of the garden.

Watching her, the dog lifted her head in a soundless howl. Indigena had no doubt it was a bitch, though how she knew that was not open to her. The fact simply arrived in her skull as if pushed there like a brick, and then the dog paced along the edge of the garden, watching her all the while with bright silver eyes, and leaped, and vanished into starlight and snow.

And Indigena understood that it might not make much of a difference at all, what she knew, or where she stood, or what thorns she had growing out of her back.


	80. In Night's Poisoned Garden

**Warning: Gore.** Also, emotional turmoil. This is not a nice chapter.

**Chapter Sixty-Four: In Night's Poisoned Garden**

Harry looked slowly around the kitchen. No matter how he looked, though, the view never changed. The people standing around him and staring at him still stayed the same, and so did what they carried.

Peter, Regulus, and Snape stood slightly apart from the others, near each other. They were the ones who would have to enter Indigena's garden, after all, thanks to that Unassailable Curse that forbade anyone who didn't bear a Dark Mark from coming in. Each of them carried numerous vials of the antivenin that Snape had brewed, once Thomas, Neville, and Hawthorn had declared which poisonous plants they thought most likely grew there, and which hybrids. Peter's face was nervous, pale, with a slight sheen of sweat on the forehead. Snape, of course, disdained to show such weakness. Regulus now and then glanced with affectionate anxiety at Snape, though Harry could see Snape was tensing himself to ignore those looks.

Draco stood behind him, so close that Harry could feel his heat through his clothes, but not trying to touch him. He had announced that he wanted to go to the garden, though he would be unable to do much but stand outside the wall with Harry and wait for the moment when Peter, Regulus, and Snape uncovered the Horcrux. His eyes had dared Harry to say no. Harry had just raised his eyebrows and asked why he _wouldn't_ be going along. Draco had looked flummoxed for a moment, and Harry had taken the chance to squeeze his hand.

They would get there. Not today, but they would get there. The black mountain wall, smooth as glass, loomed in Harry's mind, waiting for him.

"Harry?"

He shook his head, blinked a bit, and looked up. Regulus had turned to regard him, with enough kindness to prove that he didn't just see Snape as part of his world. Harry nodded to him to say what was on his mind.

"Are we ready?"

Harry rubbed tense hands over his robes, slicking the sweat from them. Of course, more sweat covered them in seconds, but he tried to ignore that, just as he tried to concentrate on something other than the fact that, if they uncovered the wand, someone would still have to die to break the Unassailable Curse on it.

He nodded. "We're ready. Let's go."

He was very careful, as they moved out of Silver-Mirror and prepared to Apparate to Thornhall, to keep from seeming as if he were stepping in front of Draco to defend him. He wouldn't do that anyway right now, since there was nothing here to protect him from, but he was relearning the value of small things.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Peter felt the tingle of magic as he, Regulus, and Severus stepped through the arched entrance of the garden. Part of that was the Warming Charms and other spells that enabled these plants to survive in the middle of winter, of course, but the largest part would be the Unassailable Curse, noting that everyone who stepped through the arch had a Dark Mark on his arm.

Actually, Peter was a bit surprised that Regulus could pass. When he turned, he saw Regulus rolling back his sleeve to study the Grim on his skin. He shrugged, then looked up and met Peter's eyes.

"I suppose that she wants me to come in here," he said quietly. "Or perhaps Indigena wasn't specific with the wording, and the spell counts anyone who _once_ bore a Dark Mark as welcome."

Peter nodded, then turned away. He couldn't speculate on Lady Death's motives. He couldn't speculate on anyone's motives but his own, in fact. And he knew that he had nerved himself to die as the sacrifice for the wand. No one else was going to take that from him.

His armpits were damp, and his breath came and went in fast pants. It was not that he truly _wanted_ to die. But his life was required in the service of something larger than himself. So it went.

The garden ahead of them creaked and rustled softly. The nearest plants were made of long, thin, black thorns, but some still had leaves, dark green and shiny as holly. When Peter listened, his ears tried to make voices out of the rubbing of the foliage. He shook his head and told himself sternly just to listen for the bell-sounds and music that might signal some of the rarer, more magical plants.

"We're separating?" he asked Severus and Regulus, nodding to the two paths that wound away from them, one to the left and one to the right. They were of identical width, and both made of crushed gray stones and white sand.

Regulus frowned. "I don't think that's a good idea. If one of us finds the wand, the others would need to be able to come to him as soon as possible. And this might be a maze, or we might have to force our way through plants that would kill us." He touched the vials of antivenin in the pocket of his robe.

Peter gnawed his lip. "On the other hand," he said, "I know what the ash wood the wand is evidently made of smells like. And as a rat, I could fit through the human-sized traps more easily than you could."

"But the plants might stab at any movement," said Severus, folding his arms around himself as if he were cold, and moving away from Regulus when he held a hand out. "Small or large, if you move around their roots, they could strike."

"Or they might not," said Peter, as patiently as possible. "We don't _know_, remember? That's the perilous part about coming into this garden like this." He nodded to the left-hand path. "I could take that one, for example, and become a rat, and try to find the wand and dig it out. And then I could drag it back. You could explore the rest of the garden. If you found it, you could shout for me. I'd hear you."

Regulus and Severus exchanged glances. Peter could see that the plan appealed to both of them, though for different reasons. Severus had forgotten about the practical advantages that Peter's Animagus form could give him; Regulus wanted to stay near Severus, whom Peter hoped would crack soon. It was becoming painful to watch them dance around each other.

_I might never be alive to see that cracking._

It was hard, learning to live with the consciousness and foreknowledge of death.

"I suppose we can do it," Severus said. He seemed to loathe being left alone with Regulus, but he had never been one to deny good sense, and Peter knew that his plan sounded like the sheerest good sense.

"Good," said Peter. "As I said, call for me if you find it. I'll bring the wand, if I find it, to the meeting of these paths." And he changed before either of them could start arguing, for any reason.

The world collapsed around him, and then loomed, the way it always did. Peter sniffed, and his nostrils filled with a world of scents he could never imagine living without while he was a rat, but which he was used to losing again, the moment he became human. He skipped forward, paws skittering lightly across the roots of the large thorns, and vanished into the world of the undergrowth.

The ground rippled up and down beneath his feet, tiny mounds of good digging dirt and dipping thorns that would make a burrow uncomfortable, leaves that stank of cat fur and ones that smelled clean and tasty, flowers that Peter's instincts insisted were out of season and darkness that would make an excellent shelter from the reaching paws of felines. Peter took note of the fact, however, that no rats or mice or other burrowing creatures had been burrowing or eating. That was a bad sign. No matter how pleasant the country, if someone didn't live here already, Peter would not have wanted the plants for neighbors.

He shook off the ratty thoughts and lifted his head, flaring his nostrils and twitching his whiskers, concentrating on the smell of ash wood. He did think he sniffed a faint trace of it to the left, and altered his trail, ducking and weaving around the bases of several thornbushes that swayed, but didn't try to stab him.

Already, he was wondering if he should actually take himself back to the crossing of trails if and when he found the wand. Perhaps it would be better to kill himself where it lay, so that neither Severus nor Regulus could argue, or try to make himself the sacrifice. Peter wanted them to live and enjoy each other's company. And Harry was waiting on the other side of the wall, his connection to Voldemort open as much as he dared. In the best case scenario, he would appreciate a warning when the Horcrux was made vulnerable, so that he could start swallowing the magic and the shard of Tom Riddle inside, but Peter was also sure he could sense it.

_Maybe—maybe—_

Of course, all that depended on him being the one to find the wand in the first place. Along with the smell of ash wood, Peter applied himself to looking for any sign of recent digging.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Snape ducked as a whistling branch, spiked with thorns like nails, swung above him and crashed into the bush on the other side of the path. He shivered, impressed. The sheer strength of the thing argued that it couldn't be stopped by conventional means, and Rhangnara and Hawthorn had warned them that burning some of the plants in Indigena's garden might have a chance to release poisonous fumes.

Still, it was easy enough to cast a spell across his face so that he wouldn't breathe in the fumes, then cast _Incendio _on the plant. The long branch, coming around for another strike, writhed like a beheaded snake and died in the flames. Regulus, on the other side of it, uttered a breathless laugh.

"Not so strong, are they, Severus?"

Snape tightened his jaw and tramped through the ashes to join Regulus on the continuing trail. So far, they had faced a plant covered with flute-like flowers that tried to sing to them and lull them to sleep, numerous thorns, a series of vines that crawled along at ground level to snare their ankles and trip them, a tree that nearly tricked them into walking into a crack in the trunk, and now this. Snap would not say that their opponents so far had been _weak._

And there had been no sign of Ravenclaw's wand, no sign of its being buried or stuck obligingly in the crook of a bough. Snape was beginning to believe that Peter would stand a better chance of finding it after all.

When he looked up, Regulus was using his wand to poke at a large shrub covered with shiny leaves and dark purple flowers. Snape hissed under his breath. _This is only another reason he shouldn't be let out without a minder. _He stuck out his wand and pushed Regulus's away from the shrub. "What do you think you're _doing_?" he snapped.

Regulus made wide, innocent eyes at him. "Severus," he said, in a deliberate whinge. "I just saw what I thought was a wand in there." He nodded to a stem that had the same length and thickness as a wand, if one were drunk. "I was trying to knock it down without disturbing the bush, that's all."

Snape wanted to say, "A likely story," but that was too predictable, and he wanted to tell Regulus to stop calling him Severus, but it wasn't as if the man ever listened anyway. "Regulus—"

And then Regulus let out a sharp breath and took a step forward, ignoring the way that the flowers reared up and flared like reaching arms with tendrils, as if they would pull him close, lock their blossoms over his face, and drain the life from him. "_Severus,_" he breathed. The teasing had vanished from his voice. "Look."

And so Snape did, and he saw the small mound of dirt at the foot of the purple-flowered bush, with a figure worked on the top of it. The figure _could_ have been a raven with wide-spread wings. Or it could have been another bird. An eagle, perhaps, the symbol of Ravenclaw at Hogwarts.

"We don't know that it means anything, Regulus," he hissed, and shifted his wand from one hand to the other to calm his nerves. "She could have created several of them to serve as decoys if someone managed to make it this far. Or she could have wanted to make someone start seeing hints in shadows where there are none."

Regulus ignored this sensible counsel, because it seemed that that was what he _did._ Instead, he knelt and used his wand to carefully brush away dirt from the top of the mound, disturbing the bird-like figure. Snape plunged his free hand into a robe pocket, searching for the vials of antivenin. This would be the point where a tendril came out of the mound and poisoned Regulus, he was certain.

But nothing happened, except the dirt breaking apart to reveal a wand beneath it. The wand was made of ash wood, and shimmered with a faint, dark line that Snape had seen before: crawling along the edge of the Sword of Gryffindor, and surrounding the ring that Harry had seized and broken.

Regulus looked up at Snape with triumph in his eyes. "We haven't destroyed it yet," he whispered. "And she probably has protections that will come to life if we try to move it. But the _true_ defenses, the ones that Voldemort used, are probably broken. She had to move it out of its original hiding place in the orphanage, remember? I bet he had spells as formidable as Slytherin's shade on them, but he had to remove them or tell her how to break them so she could go there and move the Horcrux."

Snape couldn't disagree with that line of reasoning. Lazuli Yaxley had kept a close watch on Thornhall when she could, and her shadow-mate and her sister Peridot had done the same when Lazuli was occupied. They would have noticed Indigena Apparating in constantly to adjust the defenses on the wand, and she had not. It seemed that Indigena had brought the wand here, trusted to the plants to protect it and later the Unassailable Curse, and had not bothered to build up the defenses.

"We can remove it. I'm not going to touch it, though," Regulus whispered, and pointed his wand at Ravenclaw's wand. "_Wingardium Leviosa!_"

The Horcrux floated into the air. Regulus gave Snape a triumphant look from half-lidded eyes.

Then vines lashed up from the ground, grabbing Regulus, binding him and bowing him backward, so that in moments he hung with his head pointed towards the dirt and his shoulders and limbs twisted at impossible angles. Snape barely kept himself from lunging forward with a snarl. Instead, he crouched beside Regulus and tried to figure out how to reverse the vines, which every second wound tighter, and bent his head towards his spine.

"I would not do that, traitor," said Indigena Yaxley's smooth voice from behind him.

Snape glanced coldly over his shoulder at her. She had stepped out from between two bushes, and had her own wand in her hand, pointed directly at him, as well as the thorns swaying above her shoulders. They could plunge down and yank his heart out of his chest, as Snape well knew. That was what had happened to Percy Weasley.

And she had Regulus.

Snape was astonished to find out how close he was to losing his self-control over this. He did not love Regulus. He knew that. He could not be loved. He knew that.

But Regulus was bound and straining at his feet, small crack by small crack, towards being completely broken, and he felt as if he were floating on a piece of pack ice in the middle of a flow of magma. The pack ice was his self-control.

He stood. Indigena raised an eyebrow, and the vines holding Regulus flexed and bent him further.

"If you attack me, or he struggles, he dies," said Indigena softly. "They will literally rip him apart, snap his neck and his spine. Otherwise, his death will be slow and torturous, unless you hand Ravenclaw's wand to me and leave this garden." Her green-streaked hair had arisen to join the swaying of the thorns above her shoulders now.

"How do I know you would free Regulus if I left the garden?" Snape's voice was a muted thing, just barely running ahead of the rage.

Indigena gave him a slow smile. "I have honor. You may trust me. Traitors have no honor." Her eyes flicked to his left arm. "You were given a chance to resume your loyalty, and it did not happen. I am the one who is taking a risk by trusting you." She paused, and when Snape didn't move, added, "I am only interested in serving my Lord. I would have let you be if you had not found the wand, or attempted to remove it. I have been here since you first entered the garden. It is at my command that my darlings did not injure you more than they have so far."

Snape felt sick. To know they had been watched all along, allowed to get this far only because the garden's mistress had found them amusing…

And then the world changed.

A tremendous bay broke across the garden. It shuddered in the ground around them, in Snape's bones, in the blood that coursed along his veins. He turned towards it, and that took more courage than it had ever taken him to do anything. All his instincts, the instincts of creatures once hunted by predators that had bellowed like that, were screaming at him to run, and keep running. The terrors of the vines ahead were nothing compared to the claws and teeth behind.

He saw an enormous hound, a true Grim of the kind that Sirius Black had only dreamed he could imitate, standing in a thicket ten feet away. Its eyes were as silver as the symbol in the center of Harry's palm. Its fur was as black as the Mark on the inside of Regulus's arm. As Snape watched, Lady Death raised her head and howled again, making him stumble to his knees.

Indigena gave a wordless, gibbering shriek beside him, as if the mere sight of the dog had frightened her too much to do anything.

And then she fell to her knees with another shriek as a gray rat bit her on the ankle, and Snape turned and saw what else had happened.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

The bay had reminded him.

_Come when I call_, she had said, sitting on the throne in the desolate country, after she had given him the information about the Horcruxes. _Give me what I crave when I crave it. When I call you on to die, then you cannot refuse me._

And now the call had come, the hunting bay that she had imitated for him when he asked.

Regulus closed his eyes. He had made the bargain, his life for knowledge, death for wisdom. At least he had lived long enough to learn what love was again, and choose an heir, and know that he was leaving the houses and treasures that had depended on him in capable hands.

He somewhat regretted that he had _not_ lived long enough to see love returned, but that was not something he could expect, not with someone as stubborn as Severus was. It would have been worth it, to break those masks, had he had the time.

It had been worth it, to have lived as he was.

He dedicated his life to the destruction of the Horcrux, in one breath, and thought of Harry in the next.

And so, with love riding his mind, controlling his movements as it had from the day that he descended to the guarded cave and stole the locket Horcrux, Regulus Black wrenched himself backwards and sideways, and heard his bones snap like castanets in the moments before darkness took him.

The Dark was deep and soft, and rolled him in velvet blankets, and an enormous cold tongue, the tongue of a mother dog licking a puppy, scraped him from head to foot, and so he ended.

His second-to-last thought was of Harry, his last thought of Severus.

Regulus Black died content.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry reeled to the ground. It wasn't the scar in his head flaring with pain, the way he had thought it would be if Snape, Regulus, Peter, or all of them together managed to find the Horcrux and break the Unassailable Curse, but the silver dogs-head in the center of his left palm. The metal was cold, unbearably colder than the flesh around it, freeze-drying it as Harry watched.

"Harry! What—" Draco was beside him, wrenching at his wrist.

Harry sucked a deep breath into his lungs and heard the dog crying, baying, barking as if down a trail. Regulus had said Lady Death would call him. From the sound of it, she just had.

He could not mourn. Not yet.

They stood on the northern side of the garden-wall, and now Harry leaned against it, trusting some of his weight to Draco, and opened the connection in his scar as wide as it would go, with a mental shout. If the pattern was followed that had occurred the other times Horcruxes were just destroyed, the shade of Tom Riddle would come forth now, and Harry _had_ to keep him from possessing a body, had to draw him near enough that Harry could swallow his soul.

_Come to me, Tom. It's the one you hate, your heir, the one who is going to be responsible for destroying your body in a very short time. You want to take me if you can, don't you, and use my own power against me? I've already destroyed three of you, and destroyed a fourth with help. This is the fifth. Don't you want to be the one who survives?_

He could feel a cold presence in the garden moving closer and closer to him, and threw even more of himself into the call. He didn't entirely abandon the physical sensations of his body, though; he could still feel the chill in the center of his left palm, and Draco's hand, steady as rock, on his shoulder, and his warmth supporting Harry all along the right side.

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

Indigena could not stand. Every time she got herself steady enough to fire off a spell, the rat running about her nipped her again, stumbling her with the little shock of pain, and darting nimbly enough to escape the curses that she plunged into the dirt. She called a vine to take care of the rat, but the creature turned a somersault in midair, evading the reaching tendril neatly, and then bit her hand hard enough to make her drop her wand.

Add to that the instinctive terror of the dog's howl, and the fact that said dog _hadn't gone away_, but remained in the thicket, panting and watching her with cold silver eyes, and she could not get her bearings.

She knew Regulus Black was dead, and because she had not commanded the plants to kill him, or even tighten since she began the conversation with Snape, he must have killed himself. He would have dedicated his death to breaking the Unassailable Curse, and that meant the curse was now broken, and the Horcrux was vulnerable.

But it bubbled and boiled with blackness, and the darkness rising from it, forming into a vision of her master who might be about thirty years old, had his choice of bodies. The rat, Snape, Indigena herself—even one of the plants would do, and her Lord could come and make provisions to keep the new Horcrux safe until the spring equinox, would he would gain the power to draw the magic and the shard of soul back into himself if he desired.

The shade did briefly turn his head to the northern wall of the garden, but then sniffed and focused on Snape. Indigena was glad. Snape was still kneeling in shock, staring at Regulus Black's body, as if he had not known his companion could do that. He was going to be easy prey.

And then a white shape formed in front of her, and danced around the shade of her master, blocking its path.

Indigena hissed. _Aurora!_

Her Lord had told her how the shades of the school's Founders had kept the shard from the Sword of Gryffindor from reaching and taking a body for a critical amount of time in the Headmistress's office at Hogwarts. Being shades themselves, they could contend with the younger part of her master in his own world, but he could not possess them. And, from the looks of it, this shade, though spitting and hissing and making continual dives, could not get around the determined vengeance-ghost of Aurora Whitestag. She began to drive him towards the northern wall of the garden.

Indigena, finally recovering from a bit of her fear as the black bitch stood where she was and the rat scampered over to the broken corpse of Black, began feeling for her wand. Perhaps she could fire off a spell that would distract Aurora. The ghost had come to exist because of her, after all. There was at least a chance that Aurora would welcome the opportunity to take vengeance on her more than she would want to stop Tom Riddle.

But Indigena remembered the words that Aurora had spoken to her about stopping instead of killing, and felt a moment's spark of uneasy wonder.

And then a bellowing roar, a cry of anguish and pain, stirred the garden as the dog's bay had.

Indigena whirled around, picking up her wand at the same moment. Severus Snape had snapped back to reality, and he was looking at her with eyes full of dark fire.

And Indigena knew why the dog had remained.

And she was reminded that just because traitors had no honor did not mean that they had no magical strength.

Snape was near her equal in magical power, and just now, his rage had carried him beyond that. He raised his wand and spoke a curse before Indigena could steady her own grip, much less fire off a defensive spell, and the world became dark. He had blinded her, not with the simple, reversible _Caeco_, but with a spell that destroyed her eyes. The boiling, acidic pain struck a moment after the realization, and Indigena could hear herself screaming in a high, thin voice that didn't sound like a member of the House of Yaxley.

Even as she stumbled backward, a cold, dark part of her brain, always rational, whispered that this was no more than she deserved for standing by when her Lord tortured Snape in the Chamber of Secrets.

Another curse, and Indigena's feet were gone, sliced off from her by the bony jaws of what felt like machines, or perhaps conjured scorpions; she had known a spell that did that, once, before she became so involved in the study of plants as not to care for animal magic. It hurt, it hurt, it _hurt_, and she opened her mouth and let loose another wail of pain.

And then Snape spoke, and something small and spiky crawled into her mouth and snipped off her tongue. Indigena choked on her own blood, spitting a large gob of it to the ground before she could continue.

Her wand was useless to her now, and she let it drop, but there were still her darlings, and she was hard to kill, given all the plants curling beneath her skin. She told her thorns to lash straight ahead. They oriented on Snape and traveled in that direction; they could still sense him even if she no longer could.

_Snap_, and _snap_; he had cut them off in mid-flight, and only empty, soft tendrils fell to rest on her shoulders. Indigena mourned more because of that than all the rest.

And then he cast a cold spell at her.

Indigena's mind clouded. She fell on her back, and the leaves under her skin withered close to her muscles. She was so _tired_. She wanted to curl up and go to sleep under the warm earth. She could do that, and still rise. After all, she'd managed to do it in the wake of Hawthorn's linked blood curses, which should have killed her.

The air around her smelled sweet, and she heard thunder curling in her ears. Then she heard something else: the sound of boots walking.

Step, and step, and they were beside her. Indigena rolled so that her face pointed in that direction, though with destroyed eyes and tongue, she could not face her executioner and could not offer up a final moment of scorn for the way that he had betrayed his true allegiance.

The curse that killed her began deep in her internal organs, rupturing them one by one and then driving them out through her skin in a messy spray of blood and flesh and slick things. Indigena had seen it used, and so she knew what was happening as she fell away from honor and pain into the endless bay of a hound.

Strangely, though, the final sensation she knew was not pain, but relief, and the vision that accompanied her was one of Minister Scrimgeour.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry would have fallen if not for Draco. Merlin, why wasn't the shade coming to him? Harry had both a solid body and magical power that resembled his own to offer him. He called, and called again, and only felt the dark presence of the shade buffeted towards him after long moments in which he could feel nothing but his palm and Draco.

Not that it was a bad thing, to feel that much Draco.

And then a pair of shapes came over the garden wall, one dark and one white, and Harry didn't pause to see who had helped him snare the shade of Tom Riddle. He simply lashed, drinking, the jaws of his _absorbere_ gift rising and falling with a regular crunching motion. He needed to chew, he needed to masticate, and he needed to swallow. His belly ached with a savage pain, but he would get used to that later. He could even throw up, once this moment was past.

Tom Riddle fought him, of course. From what little he could see, Harry thought this was an older Tom Riddle, which might explain why he hadn't come directly for Harry as the younger specimen from the ring had; he was more experienced, and too sensible just to dash straight for the nearest source of power. But he was still restricted by his need for a body, and by the fact that he couldn't drain Harry's magic the way Harry could drain him, and by the experience Harry had of swallowing bits of soul like this before.

Harry leaned forward, trembling, all his magic working at the feast. Shards of dark power dropped directly into his stomach, and he broke out into cold sweat and then began to physically retch, though he only brought up bile since he'd had the sense not to eat anything before they left for the garden. But all the time, Draco maintained hold of him, and Harry drew, and the piece of Tom Riddle floated towards him, screaming.

And then Harry bit off his head.

The rest of the magic folded up and fell into its proper place, tucking itself into him like a parasite. Harry shuddered. It was like swallowing a tapeworm. But he had managed worse, and he would manage worse in a few days, when he fell off the mountain, and so he finished it.

When he stood, he nodded to Draco. "Thank you," he said, and then looked up at the white shadow that hovered above the garden wall, wondering if that was a piece of the shade he would have to eat, too.

To his shock, Aurora Whitestag's face smiled back at him. Then she bowed her head, extended her hands in front of her, and dimmed like morning fog before the sun, thinning and vanishing. Somehow, Harry doubted that she would ever return.

And then the cold in the center of his hand struck again, and he said as softly as he could, "Regulus is dead."

Draco stared at him. Then he said, "Are you certain?"

"I think so." Harry began to pick his way around the garden wall. "Come on. We should find them."

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Peter met them at the entrance of the garden, practically pulling Snape behind him. Harry saw why he had so much trouble as soon as Snape faced them fully. He had Regulus's body in his arms, and he wouldn't loosen his grip on it by one iota, even when Peter kicked him.

"Indigena Yaxley is dead," Peter said, in a horrible flat voice. "Severus killed her. And the Horcrux is gone. And I don't know what to do with the rest of my life."

He looked so lost that Harry gave him one hard hug, then stepped away from him and approached Snape.

His father didn't look up from Regulus. Only when Harry softly spoke his name did he glance away from the dead face. Harry caught a glimpse of the way Regulus's spine was twisted then, and winced.

Snape's face was full of the self-recrimination of one who had realized a beautiful truth too late.

Harry leaned forward, and put his arms around him, and said nothing. There was nothing to be said, except for something far away in the garden, where a black hound called a fourth time, and then was silent.


	81. In a Sea of Mourning

**Chapter Sixty-Five: In a Sea of Mourning**

Snape could not see, nor hear.

Well. He could see one thing, hear one thing. He could see Regulus's gray eyes, wide and glazed in death. The idea that peace came to the dead was a laughable thing. He could feel the broken shards of Regulus's spine jabbing into his arms. He had not died _peacefully_, but given up his life in an incredibly horrendous and painful way. It was beyond Snape's understanding why someone would speak of this as an ending of pain.

He could hear the voices chattering and washing around him, sometimes speaking his name, sometimes speaking Regulus's, trying to give comfort the best they could. But none of them had been in his position, knowing love given too late, and so he ignored them. Most of his life, other people had assumed they could understand something about him, that they had something in common with him, and that was the reason behind all the sympathetically outstretched hands. But they had nothing in common with him, and so Snape refused to admit them and their words. He sat where he was, and stared into Regulus's face, and waded into a sea of self-recrimination.

It was familiar. It felt like home. After all, he had stayed there for a good long time after Voldemort had first fallen. And who was there now to rescue him? Anyone who reached out of sympathy wouldn't understand. Anyone who presumed they understood what it was like to lose love so early would not be right.

Snape sat, and did not care what went on around him, or even the way that Regulus's body stiffened in his arms. No, this was not Regulus, who had gone on, but it was all that remained. And this lonely shell was all that Snape deserved, a fitting and bitter symbol of his failures.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Connor watched the door of the bedroom, gnawing his lip. He didn't think that he _could_ intrude. He had nothing to say to Snape's grief. He hadn't known Regulus well, though he'd liked him. And Snape hated Gryffindors, and hated him. He would not welcome Connor Potter's comments on the way that he moped.

On the other hand, this was worrying Harry, who had gone in and talked to Snape for a few hours, and then come out shaking his head and saying nothing had changed. Connor didn't want his brother worried.

No one else was in there.

Finally, Connor opened the door of the room. Unsurprisingly, he thought, potions vials covered every available flat surface. They sometimes bubbled and sometimes glittered, but didn't move when Connor edged into the room. He supposed they were all balanced enough so they wouldn't fall over.

Snape sat on his bed with Regulus's body draped across his lap. Connor wrinkled his nose a bit. Was it starting to smell already? He didn't know if dead bodies decayed that fast, but he wouldn't be surprised. Maybe it was potions ingredients he was smelling.

"Sir?" he tried.

Well, he got more of a reaction than Harry had reported. Snape's head snapped up like a snake striking, and he _glared_. Connor kept himself from reeling at the glare. He had done nothing wrong. At least, if Snape yelled at him to get out, then that would be forcing him to do something other than stare at Regulus's body.

"Get _out_," Snape snarled, right on cue.

"Are you going to stop staring at Regulus and let them prepare him properly for burial?" Connor demanded, because he might as well. "Or burning," he added, remembering Harry's account of Sirius's funeral. "I know that they burn the Black bodies, to return them to the stars."

If anything, Snape's glare became more poisonous still. "Get _out_," he said, the way he might have said it to a student who insisted on lingering in the dungeons classroom when a potion full of poisonous fumes had just spilt. Of course, there was no more dungeons classroom because there was no more Hogwarts. Connor wondered for a moment if he would live to see it rebuilt.

Then he shrugged and told himself that of course he would, and to stop being stupid, and looked directly into Snape's eyes. "You do know that they'll have to burn the body eventually? Harry has the right, as the Black heir, and so does Draco, since his mother was Regulus's cousin—"

And then he was facing the end of Snape's wand. Connor had the sense to stop talking, but not the sense to run. Why would he? He could take anything Snape could throw at him. He glared back at Snape, thought of transforming into a boar so he would at least have a tail to switch, and thought better of it.

"Get _out_, now," Snape whispered.

It was the undertone to his voice, like dark water running beneath stone, that convinced Connor, more than any threat could have done. He nodded, and stepped out, and closed the door behind him. _Then_ he allowed himself to shake a bit.

"You didn't, Potter."

Connor rolled his eyes. Draco was leaning against the side of the corridor, and looked torn between scornful and incredulous.

"There was at least the chance he would respond to me," Connor said. "And he did. He didn't seem overjoyed with the suggestion that you and Harry would have to take the body for burning, though."

Draco's hands clenched one around the other. "How can you do this?" he demanded sharply. "Do you have any idea what he's lost?"

"No," said Connor. "And I don't think that you have, either. After all, Harry admitted his love to you, and he's still alive."

Draco turned away as if the argument weren't worth bothering with, but said over his shoulder, "Leave him alone, Potter. For _his_ sake. I personally wouldn't care if he flayed all your skin off—it's what you deserve—but I wouldn't want him to wake up and find out he'd done that."

Connor gave the closed door a dubious glance. He still thought someone should go in and talk Snape out of his idiocy, but he supposed it couldn't be him.

The sight of Regulus's face, so still, and the knowledge of what his fate had cost Snape, had given him an idea, though. Connor wasn't sure Parvati would agree to it, but he needed to ask her. So he went to her bedroom, and knocked, and, when she opened the door, stepped inside and shut it behind him.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Draco snorted as he made his way down to the kitchen. _Fucking Potter. Always has to follow his idiotic ideas exactly when he should stay out of things. Well, I'm not going into Professor Snape's rooms. He'll need to work this out on his own, and I think we should leave him alone until he does._

He found Harry sitting at the kitchen table, talking quietly with Peter Pettigrew. The man had his head in his hands, and didn't look up. Harry leaned forward, eyes on him, and went on talking. After a moment to consider if it was his business or not, Draco decided it was. He was unaware of what sins _Peter_ had committed that made him a candidate for sympathy. It sounded, from the story, as though he'd done everything he could in the garden, and it simply hadn't been enough to prevent Regulus Black's suicide. Draco didn't think anyone could have.

"—not meant to be a sacrifice for that Horcrux, then," Harry was saying. "That doesn't _matter_, Peter. I appreciate what you decided to do. Deciding to give your life up in advance, and holding that _secret_…" He shook his head and squeezed Peter's hand. "But that doesn't mean the rest of your life is valueless."

Draco blinked. Now that he thought about it, he remembered his idea that Peter's behavior had been odd lately, and that he might have decided to make himself the sacrifice. He wondered if Peter had told that to Harry, or if Harry had wormed it out of him on his own, and edged a little closer to listen.

"But it's so hard," Peter whispered. "To think that my life was ending, to see it as a black cliff beyond which nothing more could lead me on, and then to learn that, actually, there was no chasm at all, because someone else took my place. I feel like I gave all my energy to a blow, and then the spell hit nothing."

"I know," said Harry, with so much passion in his voice that Draco felt caught somewhere between wonder and jealousy. "I've leaned on a purpose like that, too, Peter, and then had to find something else to do with my life when I found that purpose had faded, or was wrong and not—mine in the same way I thought it was. You were there when one of the key moments in that change happened. Remember?"

Peter's face changed as he evidently remembered the Shrieking Shack. Draco bit his lip to keep from snarling. That was, perhaps, the part of Harry's life he resented missing the most, though he'd seen it both while sharing Harry's mind and in Pensieve memories. Harry, Connor, and Peter were the only ones who knew what it was _really_ like to watch the prophecy turn out not to have marked Harry as guardian at all, to reel in those stunning moments of truth that the rest of the world had only slowly come to know. Draco knew that, short of acquiring a Time-Turner, not even Harry being more open could change that for him, but it didn't stop him from resenting it.

"But—you didn't think you were going to die," Peter whispered then.

"I had to get used to thinking of a life of my own," said Harry, "a life that included Draco, and Snape, and you, and Regulus, and more people than just my brother. No, I didn't believe I would die in a few days at the time. I believed I could die _any_ day, that my life might be required of me to defend Connor, and that was all right. In fact, what other purpose had I been born for? But it took a long time to move on from that. So I don't expect you to change your mind overnight, Peter. Merlin knows _I_ didn't. I just object to the idea that you'll never adjust, that your life would have to become a sacrifice to be worth anything." His voice altered. "And that you did anything wrong. Regulus killed himself because he _wanted_ to. He had a moment to choose, and he did it. I don't think he died unhappily. He had foreknowledge, in a sense, and he was still one of the most joyful people I've ever seen. I wish that for you."

Peter licked his lips for a moment, then said, "There is still one Horcrux left."

"And, currently, I have no idea how to get it away from Evan Rosier," Harry said easily. "So you could be the sacrifice. If you were in a position to choose that, then—yes. I couldn't gainsay you, because you would have chosen it of your own free will." Draco wondered if Peter saw the soft shine of tears on Harry's cheeks, or if he was too caught up in his own emotion. "But I wish you wouldn't think that's the _only_ reason you're still alive, Peter. What happened if you aimed for it, and then someone else got there before you again?"

Peter opened his mouth as if he would say something, and ended up closing it. Draco shifted impatiently. He wanted to intrude and say that Peter should mourn more for his friend than his own lost opportunity to lose his life—but, at the same time, he didn't know if he had the right to intrude on a conversation this intimate. He was not Connor.

"I miss him," Harry said. "I'll always miss him. And I wish Snape had been more courageous, or easier to court, but then he wouldn't be my father. Merlin knows _that_. But, please, Peter, don't feel that your still being alive is a waste." He sat back and surveyed Peter earnestly. "You won't, will you?"

Peter hesitated a long moment more before he shook his head. "How can I?" he whispered. "I don't—I didn't think what my life could mean, to other people besides myself, or that others had had the same experiences." He wrapped his arms around Harry's shoulders and hugged him tight. Harry hugged him back. From his angle, Draco could see his knuckles turning white as they dug into Peter's robes, which made him close his hand in envy. He let out his breath, and tried to remind himself that just because Harry was sharing his grief with Peter didn't mean there would be none left to share with Draco.

"I'm sorry that Regulus is dead," Harry whispered. "But I'm glad you're alive. I hope you can be."

Peter said nothing, just drew back, clenched Harry's shoulder for a moment, and then walked out of the kitchen by the other door, so that Draco didn't have to move. Harry sat where he was, eyes closed and breath heaving in and out of his lungs. Draco watched him, curious and concerned. Would he sit where he was and resume his barriers, the way he had before? Would he go up to Snape and try to comfort him, as he'd spent the morning fruitlessly doing?

No. He stood up and walked towards the door Draco stood next to, an unusually determined expression on his face, but he made no effort to wipe the tears from his cheeks, and this wasn't the way to Snape's rooms. Draco drew back, watching in silence.

Harry halted when he saw him, though, and his face reflected honest surprise. "You're here," he said. "I thought you were in our room."

Draco shrugged, as though his being here were nothing more than a fortunate accident, but his mouth betrayed him. "You were looking for me?"

"Yes," Harry whispered. "I wanted to—Merlin, Draco, he's _gone._" And then he moved forward, leaned his head on Draco's shoulder, and began to cry, in a quiet way more intense than the tears he'd shown so far.

Draco lifted his arms and put them carefully around Harry's shoulders. He did not dare to hope, not yet. He had hoped and been disappointed so often before.

But there was a tiny spark of something down at the bottom of his belly, which could have been hope if he would have admitted to it. Harry had sought him out, while there was still someone mourning fiercely, uncomforted, and before he was at the absolute end of his tether, for no other reason than sharing his grief.

There _might_ be hope, just as there might be an answer to defeating Voldemort somewhere in the Black houses and treasures that Harry had inherited.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Snape did not look up, because the world beyond the end of his hands did not matter. He heard the door open, and footsteps cross the floor, but that was well enough. They were not Potter's footsteps, and so he did not have to lift his wand and fire off a curse. He curled tighter around Regulus's body. The shards of bone jabbed into his arms again. Perhaps they had cut the cloth and made him bleed, and that was why it was harder to hold the corpse than it should have been. He did not care enough to look. He stared into Regulus's face. He had closed the eyes sometime in the last half-hour. The glazed look had begun to get to him, because Regulus had never looked that lazy, that unalert, when he was alive.

_Perhaps he would have, if—_

But Snape's mind cut away the weave of images and situations that could have led to such an occurrence. He wasn't interested in them. And he wasn't interested in the voice of the person who had settled beside him, either. They could say whatever they liked, and leave again. They would, of course. Snape could not imagine who in the world would care for him now, after he had rejected and lost his chance with Regulus. Surely anyone else would decide that he could not be trusted with the treasure of affection. Why should they? Who wished to love someone who continually learned the truth too late, long after he should have learned it?

"He was like a child when he first appeared in my head."

_Harry. Of course. _And Snape had his answer for someone who would try to love him even after he had wasted Regulus's time and heart. He simply didn't care. Harry would try to reach for him, and this time Snape would not grasp his hand, but sit in silence until it fell.

He knew it was selfish, self-concerned, horrible. That did not matter. Grief _was_ selfish.

"I had only heard of him not long before. And when I understood what Voldemort had done to him, I was horrified. A curse, months of horrible pain, and then Transfiguration into a wooden dog—though I didn't find that out until later. Not only depriving him of a body, but making him feel pain even then. He never exactly _confirmed_ it to me, but I think he could still feel pain when he floated in that connection we had, thanks to my scar. He only didn't feel it when he retreated into the dog, and then there was only stillness, nothingness. He survived boredom, nothing to sense and no one to talk to, for thirteen years. I think I would have gone mad."

Snape had known all that. He wondered why Harry thought that telling him now would make any difference.

"And yet he remained so like a _child_, even when he'd regained his memory, which he didn't have when he appeared in my head." Harry's voice was full of wonder. "That innocence, that amusement with life. I've never known anyone else who had that. It wasn't as if he was _untouched_ by darkness. I saw that when he came back from Death's country, how much it had unnerved him to see her. But it wasn't entirely new to him. He lived through it." A hand drifted out and touched Snape's arm. "And he knew you, then."

Snape tried to draw his arm back. The hand followed, as if Harry didn't notice the attempt to pull away, or didn't care. _Probably the latter, _Snape thought, and a small ball of resentment formed in his stomach.

"I can't conceive of the strength it must have taken, to last through such darkness, and then the darkness in between, and then to volunteer to go into the darkness again, in Death's country, not knowing if he would ever come back," Harry whispered. "And his childhood was hardly good, either, given his parents and the conflicts with Sirius. And he knows how Sirius died, he was there when he died, and he had to bear with the knowledge that he suffered and Regulus himself couldn't do anything to prevent it. And he was kept away from me for half a year in my fourth year, from the autumnal equinox to the spring one, and I think Voldemort tortured him, though he never said. And still he _lived._"

"Of course he did," Snape said, compelled to answer by the tone of awe in Harry's voice. "If he had not, he could hardly have done—this." He gestured to the broken corpse in his arms with the hand that Harry held, hoping that would make him release it. No such luck.

"I didn't mean lived as in survived," said Harry. "Anyone could have done that. I mean lived as in he picked himself up, and forgave the latest tragedy, and went on living with a heart that he didn't allow to scar."

Snape turned his head to stare at him. Harry's eyes stared back at him, earnest and bright green and showing no sign that he understood the ridiculousness of what he had just said.

"He certainly did not _forgive_ Voldemort," said Snape, his own voice half-alien to his ears. "He worked against him from the day that he understood how important the locket Horcrux was. And Voldemort was the source of too much suffering and misery in his life."

"I didn't say that he forgave _him_," Harry countered calmly. "He hated the people it was reasonable to hate. I said that he forgave the _tragedy_. There are too many people who start hating life when something bad happens, who assume that the whole world is like that, and harden their hearts against more living. They assume that one burned hand means they'll always get burned, and never extend it again, stupid though it is to think the whole world's fire. Regulus didn't do that."

"And _I_ did." Not even Snape could tell if the predominant tone in his voice was anger or self-loathing.

"Yes." Harry's hand tightened on his wrist, so that he really couldn't pull away. "And so did I, and so did Lucius, and so did James, and so did Lily, and so did Peter, for a while, when he did nothing but sit in Azkaban Prison and assume that the whole world hated him and blamed him for something he'd been _ordered_ to do. He didn't summon the will to push against the phoenix web, really crack it, and escape until he read that I was suffering from the same kind of thing. He and Regulus and Hawthorn are the only people I've ever known whose lives are wasted and struck down by grief after grief, and yet who go on living like that. And Peter came near to losing the capacity today." Harry's voice hardened a bit. "He'd become too wrapped up in the notion that he had to die in the garden, and that nothing else he did was useful."

Snape stared at him.

"What?" Harry asked.

"You were not supposed to agree with me," Snape whispered, though he was not sure who had written the script he and Harry were straying from. Perhaps he and Harry had written it, during the other times that he had been comforted or watched Harry comfort others in grief and heart-sickness. "You said—you said that I did not have the capacity."

"The fact that you're sitting here, and planning to sit here for the rest of your life if necessary, shows that you don't," Harry answered. "And you've certainly lived enough of your life like that. I don't know what you did during your time as a Death Eater, you realize? I have more idea of what Lucius did, though he took care to cover his tracks, and he's certainly never had a heart-to-heart talk with me about it. I don't know what really made you turn your back on Voldemort and come to Dumbledore. I only know a little about what made you choose to side with me. You have your emotions, but you keep them so tightly closed up I have no notion of what's happening in your head, sometimes."

Outraged, Snape tried to pull free. This time, he tugged hard enough that Harry fell to one knee in front of him, but his hand stayed right where it was. Snape suspected it was magic maintaining the grasp, but he had no way to tell.

"You have no right to speak to me like this," Snape snarled. "Do you understand what I've lost?"

"No." Harry's eyes glittered with intensity, and something like anger, as he leaned forward. "I understand that you didn't say that you loved Regulus in time, and so he never knew if you did. I understand that you're unlikely to confess that love to me at all," he added, when Snape opened his mouth. "And I understand that I've made the same mistakes myself, so the moral high ground from which I can lecture you is very small. But I _also_ understand that I'm not going to sit here and watch you waste the rest of your life away."

"I would give up the body for burning eventually," Snape said. He felt this point needed emphasis.

"But part of you will always be sitting in this room, holding onto it." Harry's grip tightened to just this side of painful. "I don't want that, thanks. I want you back without thinking that you carry yet another scar on your heart for which you can find no redemption." His eyes slid to Snape's left forearm and the Dark Mark for a moment, then returned to his face. "And it's not that people aren't willing to forgive you. You feel there can _be_ no redemption, and you carry that around with you and make people feel bad for offering it." He took a deep breath, and his hand tightened still further, pressing tendon to bone in Snape's arm. "I want my father back."

"You have no right to do this when the wound is so deep," Snape hissed. He felt as if someone had found his heart and were sprinkling salt over it, with lemon juice to follow.

Harry looked at him again, and Snape realized one thing that was different about his eyes, beyond the fact that usually Harry would have pulled away by now. Harry had no Occlumency pools in place. So compassion was there, but it was fighting irritation and exasperation and grief of his own.

Snape wanted to ask what had prompted that change, but Harry gave him no chance. "We've established that already. _No one_ has the right to do this. Regulus, maybe, but he's _dead._" Snape flinched. Harry didn't miss it. He dropped his other hand to push Regulus's long black hair back from his face, to show the horribly twisted neck, which Snape so far had been successful in not looking at. "He's _dead_," Harry repeated. "He won't come back. And you won't pull yourself out of this on your own. So there go the two people with _rights_ over this situation. It'll have to be someone who cares about you and can risk your anger but who doesn't care that much right now about whether he's morally justified in doing this." He leaned forward, eyes searching Snape's. "You _will_ become a recluse if someone doesn't shock you from it."

"I would give up the body, I said," Snape snarled.

Harry ground his teeth, and for a moment a pair of spiked, bony wings appeared on his shoulders. Then he said, "And this isn't about that, or anything else that you'll readily agree to. This is about emotional isolation, as we both know. Are you going to come out of here and start living again? Or will you lock yourself into place and orbit around Regulus the way you once did around your time as a Death Eater? I know that I was able to make you pay attention to _something_ besides that when I came to Hogwarts. But, so sorry, I'm all out of emotionally crippled boys who need mentor figures to rescue them from abusive parents and Headmasters. I _need_ your help, Father. I need you here with me. I can't do this on my own." He shut his eyes as if to keep the tears from creeping down his face, but his voice was still clear. "Come _back_. I'm sorry that Regulus never had the chance to see your heart unshielded, as he should have, but that's what makes it necessary to live with the consequences of one's mistakes, instead of just forgetting them or chewing over them."

Snape had his wand drawn. He didn't remember drawing it. He fired a spell at Harry. He didn't know what it was; the image of pain formed in his head, and it emerged from his wand as a line of poison-green light.

Harry lifted a hand and caught the curse in his palm on the silver dogs-head, which reminded Snape too much of the huge hound standing in the thicket and bellowing for Regulus. He had killed the woman who had killed Regulus, but it was never, never going to be enough. He watched in numb silence as Harry wriggled his fingers and dissipated the curse.

"This is silly," Harry said. "_Both_ of us. You _know_ he's dead. You're one of the best at accepting the inevitable I've ever seen, and finding new, workable solutions to problems—when they don't concern _you_. So now I'm asking you to become skilled at that, too." He raised his head and shook his fringe out of his eyes, though it fell back so that only one eye and his lightning bolt scar were really staring at Snape. "This isn't sixteen years ago. You can't hide in Hogwarts and pretend that no one remembers you or what you did for the Light. You've done too much against Voldemort. You've done too much for other people. And I'm going to talk about it, and talk about it, and talk about it, until I drag you out of here. I would prefer your willing cooperation, but I don't need it."

"What happened to your being _vates_?" Snape snapped.

The insult once would have made Harry back off. This time, his eyes simply narrowed. "One person's free will ends where it harms others," he said. "Thus I didn't have a problem with defending Hogwarts against vampire queens who would have eaten everything in sight. And your remaining the way you are would harm me. Therefore, you don't get to remain the way you are."

Snape felt a great helplessness upwelling in him. Harry was right. Sixteen years ago, no one had cared to remember what he did, except Dumbledore—and that only because the Headmaster had wanted to use him at a later point in time. And Regulus, Snape supposed, but he had thought Regulus was dead then.

This time, he had someone both interested in remembering what he could be and uninterested in his excuses. And Harry, he knew, would keep dragging, keep pulling, keep yanking and tugging until he got him out of his shell.

Snape could not say he was _recovered_, yet. But going along—for now—and healing slowly, at his own pace, would be preferable to trying to stay a hermit crab and having Harry continually pulling at him.

Slowly, he relaxed his arms and released Regulus's body.

Harry understood what the gesture meant. He knelt where he was for a moment, staring hard into Snape's eyes. Then he nodded, and lifted Regulus's body, gently, with _Mobilicorpus_, and made for the door.

"When will you hold the funeral?" Snape asked.

Harry turned around. "Not for a day or so. I'll have to make the preparations. I'll inform you, I promise." He lifted an eyebrow for a moment. "And as for your other question, yes, I do intend to remain like this."

"Who showed you how to do that?" Snape asked. He was not sure he could live without his own Occlumency pools now. They were as much for the protection of other people from his bitterness as they were for him.

Harry gave him a thin, hard smile. "Draco."

That didn't make sense, because Draco was no Occlumens, but Harry had left before Snape could ask him anything further. Snape closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall.

Behind him lay the love he had refused and let go until too late. In front of him lay a life without it, a life of learning to recover from his mistakes.

Snape was not sure, in that moment, which frightened him more.


	82. Mountain Fall

**Fair warning: The ending of the sixth scene through the end of the chapter contain very heavy slash. Don't read it if this will offend you. **

**Chapter Sixty-Six: Mountain Fall**

"Accept this one," Harry said, and heard his voice soar as if someone else had propelled it. _Well, I never thought I would be saying these words. _"Regulus Black, younger child of Canopus Black and Capella Black, younger brother of Sirius Black, proper heir of the Black line." He paused to take a breath, and the white fire running up and down his arms roared as if in triumph. Remembering the way it had twitched at Sirius's funeral, Harry could only guess that it was glad to be burning the Black heir so designated by his parents. "Pureblood wizard, member of Slytherin House, former Death Eater, legal father of Harry Black, who died in peace and contentment and for all things larger than himself. _Accept him now._"

The magic was ringing through his bones; it had turned them to silver in a glass case. Harry began to shiver, and could not stop. But the words still flowed from him; he was not sure that he could have stopped them now, either, even if he wanted to.

"From fire we come, to fire we return." And how strange was it to say _that_, to accept, by doing so, that he was a Black and not a Potter? Harry pointed his wand at Regulus's body. "_Regulus abscondit!_"

Down came the lightning, straight from the stars, leaping for Regulus's body. The body _burst_, and from it flowed the silver light that Harry remembered at Sirius's funeral, the roar too intense to be called mere fire. This was fire transcendent, fire insistent, fire royal, rearing so high that Harry could feel some of his eyelashes and the minor hairs scattered along his body singe and burn and fall off.

And there, there in the middle of it, was Regulus.

Regulus as he had been, Harry supposed, young, though he had never seen him. The image became a small carved wooden dog, and then Regulus as he had been in the last moments before the garden: proud, unafraid, perhaps suspecting his death but nevertheless going unflinching to meet it. And then the light dripped down into the Black coat of arms, and the words _Toujours pur._

Harry shivered. He had not felt what he did then during the first funeral—but then, of course, he had not been a Black. He wondered if Narcissa had felt this, too, when she burned Sirius. A whirlwind of cold grew under his heart, answering the heat, reaching for it. For a moment, Harry felt as though he stood in a pyramid of silver light, expanding until it reached the white fire, whereupon it exploded, and flooded the world with light.

And then the white light leaped, and _passed_ upward. Harry could feel it flying for a moment, the ripples of radiance traveling through him like the workings of his own muscles, the wings that spread out from the sides woven of his hair.

"Named for fire, born in fire, given to fire," he whispered. He was sure he whispered, but his voice came out as strong as a shout anyway. "Let the fire end him."

The lightning was among the stars again; Harry saw it though his eyes were shut. He felt the _crack_ as it traveled from star to star, going, of course, to Regulus first, but then moving to Capella, to Canopus, and finally to Sirius.

And he did not tell anyone because he was not sure he heard it, and in any case it would have been cruel to the grieving Snape, but he thought he heard a sound, for just a moment, like two brothers crying out in joy.

And then it was over.

Harry opened his eyes slowly, and, for the first time since Regulus's funeral had begun, noticed the other people. They had done this on the flat ground outside Silver-Mirror, among the snow that still covered it. Draco stood behind him, one hand grasping Harry's shoulder tentatively, as if he wanted to hold him up but doubted he needed the support. Snape stood just beyond that, his face shadowed, and Peter next to him. No one else had as good a claim to be part of the funeral rites—though Narcissa would have had, were she still alive—and so no one had asked, though Harry thought the whole wizarding world would not have been out of place in honoring Regulus. He had died to save them, after all.

He opened his mouth, even though he knew there was no post-funeral oration he needed to give—Narcissa certainly had not—and then went to his knees, a soundless scream rising from his throat.

Draco knelt at once. "Harry?" he said, voice tight. "Is something wrong?"

"The houses," Harry whispered, eyes closed. "The houses are claiming me."

He could feel Draco's frown, but he couldn't explain further, the houses had stolen his voice. What had happened was the dropping-into-place of the houses within his mind. Wayhouse shone in a cascade of mingled wood and amusement. Silver-Mirror was there, of course, closest behind him and most solid. Cobley-by-the-Sea sang to the rhythms of the ocean it sat beside, far more strongly than Harry had ever suspected when he visited it. And Number Twelve Grimmauld Place waited for him, beating like the heart of a spider. The treasures in them glowed like embers to his mind's eye. Secrets sleeted through him, including ones that he wouldn't be able to explain except to his own heir. Harry guessed the final confirmation of him as Black heir had had to wait for the fact of Regulus's burning.

Heavy weights settled around his shoulders, but none so heavy as the weight of belonging. Harry felt tears of contentment sting his eyes, and then told himself that was stupid. He shouldn't be crying because he felt as if he _belonged_. Shouldn't belonging be a good thing? Shouldn't he have felt this way from the moment that he decided to take Black as his last name?

But he hadn't. And now, rising to his feet, he truly felt like Harry Black. He shook his head, took a deep breath, and fixed Draco with a stare. "What will happen to your ties to _all _the Malfoy properties when your father dies?" he murmured.

Draco's face cleared. "Ah." For a moment, he lingered, gazing deep into Harry's eyes. Harry looked back. The Occlumency pools were still gone from his mind, and he knew that Draco could see every one of his emotions.

Draco just didn't trust them to last beyond the moment, thought that Harry would finish with the ceremonial parts of the ritual and the grief and then collapse back into being his closed-off self again.

Draco was in for a surprise.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry snatched a moment alone as soon as he could, but he told the truth; it wasn't to brood, it was to settle the Black houses in his mind. He stood on the roof of Silver-Mirror, breathing, watching the stars, and pondering whether he should take a star name as his middle one in place of James. It was pleasant, to watch the constellations and the brightest lights and wonder which one would suit him best, as if he had nothing more pressing in the world to worry about.

And when the moments had passed and the Black houses no longer felt like loose teeth in his head, he could confront the vision that waited in his mind, and had ever since he had the fight with Draco just before they went after Ravenclaw's wand.

In his mind loomed a smooth, black, glassy cliff. At the bottom lay broken rocks, and the scattered bones of those who had taken this journey and then lost control of themselves when they hit the bottom.

It was the fall that Harry had been dreading, the one that would smash his shields completely and leave him living in the world like an ordinary human being.

It was the way forward.

If he loved Draco, this was the way it would have to be. And Harry knew he did, but they could not—they could not share as they had been. That was the best way Harry could phrase it, though he knew other, more complicated things lay beyond that phrasing. He took a deep breath and then let it out, still staring at the fall, still imagining that obsidian puncturing his bones, his lungs.

He carefully layered Occlumency around the one portion of his mind where he truly could not afford to neglect it, his scar connection with Voldemort. Actually, the defenses always should have been strongest there, he thought clinically. Voldemort would try to break through, perhaps, but he would find himself lost amid endless pools, which reflected themselves like mirrors and turned any seeker hopelessly round and round in a maze of drowning.

That left no Occlumency for the rest of his mind.

And that left him hopelessly at the mercy of his emotions, as he had tried to be when he was talking with Peter and Snape yesterday. But now—but now he didn't have the knowledge of their grief to bolster himself, and he would have to make his way forward leaning on the knowledge of what _he_ wanted and the knowledge of what he wanted to give Draco.

It was exciting, and yet Harry could still feel the wind blowing around him, and imagine, all too well, the bones at the bottom of that cliff.

He had to trust that his own practice at life so far would be enough to let him fly. And he had to trust Draco, who had asked for those things he wanted. Surely, if he had not wanted them, he could have changed his mind and told Harry that. Harry had to trust him, rather than worrying about what hidden motives he had.

He had to stop hiding from himself.

Terror shook him, and the dizzy vertigo that was half-exhilaration when one leaned over a high ledge.

Harry leaped down the mountain.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Connor paused when he heard his brother coming down from the roof. Something was—well, different. It might have been as subtle as his sense of Harry's magic in the air, but something was different.

He stepped back around the corner, not sure if he wanted to leap out and surprise Harry, the way he sometimes had when they were children. But Harry had never been easy to startle once they passed the age of four or so. He would smile at Connor as if he were the most adorable child in the world, and then pass on.

Well, if things had changed, Connor might get a different reaction.

He waited until Harry reached the bottom of the stairs and started to turn the corner into the hall, and then leaped out with a blood-curdling yell, waving his arms around his head as if he were some sort of yeti.

In moments, he found himself slammed backward, held pinned against the far wall by enormously powerful magic. He tried to breathe, but it was hard with a solid block of air in his mouth, preventing his windpipe from flexing. He heaved at the air, but, Merlin, he couldn't swallow it. He could feel his heart fluttering like the heart of a netted bird.

And then the grip relaxed, and he slid to the floor, and Harry snapped, "Don't _scare_ me like that, damn it!"

Connor snapped his eyes up. That didn't sound like Harry. Harry would normally never get so angry over a simple trick, the way that Draco might have. It wasn't as though he considered it an assault on his dignity, when his dignity was always in his own keeping.

Harry leaned nearer, and nearer, and Connor saw into the heart of his green eyes as if they were open air, like the kind he was currently breathing deeply, with gratitude. He could see Harry's emotions there, rich as mineral deposits, dream-like in the way that the branches of imaginary forests were.

"Harry?" Connor whispered, not sure this was his brother.

Harry rolled his eyes and snorted. "Of course I am." He waved his hand again, and Connor was back on his feet, and the minor bump on his head that he'd sustained when he slammed against the wall was healed. "Just don't do that again, all right? My reflexes are so sharp they might hurt you badly, and you're old enough that—well, it looks really bad, Connor. Like you're still a child."

"I grew up," Connor pointed out absently, more occupied in studying his brother. "What happened to you?"

He wouldn't say the smile Harry gave him was _happy_, exactly, but it was more self-aware. "I grew up, too," Harry murmured, and then pressed past him and towards the stairs from the third floor.

Connor stared after him, and decided that he would leave Harry alone for a while so that he could adjust to this new brother.

Besides, he wanted to go and see if Parvati had thought of an answer to his question.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Henrietta paused and leaned out of her room when Harry went by. The rhythm of his footsteps had changed. She knew that, because she had learned the ordinary rhythm, which was what obsessed, completely untamed Slytherins who served Lords who could not be called Lords did.

Harry walked a bit more heavily at this moment, and he was heading down the corridor with a determined look on his face, as if he were off to punish a portrait that had displeased him. Henrietta wondered which portrait would be stupid enough to argue with a face like _that_. Well, perhaps she would feel sorry for the portrait, but she would rather admire the lines in Harry's face, and the way that he sometimes muttered under his breath as if thoughts were running through his head he couldn't share.

He passed out of sight. Henrietta continued watching the way he had gone, thoughtfully, then pulled her head back into her small private study.

_Well_.

She had always known what she had would have to do, of course. Even before she had come up with the plan, the truth had been written there, in the curl of old hatred, in her bones and blood that descended from Dark wizards and witches who had always followed the same traditions. The fact that she was born human made her have to breathe, and the fact that she was born Dark and Bulstrode meant she had to perform this dance this way.

But she had only hoped, an odd, fragile, slender hope, what Harry might be after it, when she was not there to watch him with the same eyes.

For the first time, she now felt true hope, that even when she was not in the world to serve him in unobtrusive ways, still he might serve himself and not turn into the kind of Lord she would have been ashamed to serve.

Thoughtfully, she dipped her quill back into the inkwell and began her letter to Evan over. Her mood had changed, and that meant she needed to write a different letter.

Harry would not like what she was doing, when he found out about it. That didn't matter. What mattered was that Henrietta did what he needed, gave him the kind of service he _had_ to have. Sometimes that would be the same as what he wanted, and sometimes it wasn't.

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

Snape actually stepped out of the library where he had sat brooding and reading, and caught Harry's chin, tilting his face up.

He had not meant to, but he had caught one glimpse of Harry's expression as his son went by, and that had been enough to concern him, to tug him out of the grief that seemed to have intensified since Regulus's funeral. Anyone who thought holding a ceremony and burning the body was an antidote to grief had never watched a Black heir ascend in white lightning to the stars.

"Harry," he said quietly, staring into eyes that were entirely, and worrying, devoid of Occlumency. "What have you done to yourself?"

"What I should have done a long time ago," Harry said, evenly, but as if he were standing on a very fragile bridge, a thread of light above a deep abyss. "My Occlumency is still guarding my mind from Voldemort, Father. That's what it _should_ do, what you trained me to do in the first place when he broke into my head in second year. But I've used the rest of it for too long to suppress my emotions."

Snape's fingers tightened a little; he couldn't help it. It was too close to some of what Harry had said to him yesterday, when they talked about Regulus and his grief. "And so you believe that using Occlumency to suppress emotions is wrong, now?"

With a wrench, Harry freed his chin from Snape's fingers and stepped back a safe distance. From the spark in his eyes, though, Snape was not sure which one of them the safety was for.

"I didn't say that it was wrong _for you_," Harry snarled. "Just wrong for me, for right now. It would have been all right if I had a different partner, maybe, or someone who was content to wait out the war and then have my full attention when it was done." For a moment, an annoyed look wrinkled his nose. "He just _couldn't_ wait," he muttered. Then he focused on Snape again. "My words implied _nothing_ about you, just about myself."

His face turned a bit red the next moment, but he didn't apologize. He just held Snape's eyes and added, "Do you understand, sir?"

And Snape understood, then, how Draco could have taught him about Occlumency despite not being an Occlumens himself.

He hesitated. Part of him would have liked to walk Harry into the library, sit him down, and ask him if he really knew what he was doing. Harry had gone so many years with some type of control over his thoughts, whether that be phoenix web, Occlumency, or his own severe self-possession from the training. Did he want to give that up all at once? Could he afford it, when they were in the middle of a war that Snape would not see Harry marked by more than necessary?

But he did not know if it was wrong. The training itself had been wrong, and the phoenix web. The Occlumency had aided Harry much more than either of those, but Snape had to remember, now, those times that Harry had misused it, suppressing his emotions for too long during the Woodhouse rebellion last year, and locking his feelings in ice, and shutting himself off from those who could have helped because, without emotions, he saw only the danger and the damage to them, not himself.

He had not been wrong to teach Occlumency to Harry. But Harry was the one who must make the decision about how to use it.

Slowly, Snape nodded. "I do understand," he said. "I hope that you make as good use of the lack of pools as you have made with them."

Harry's face relaxed, and he reached out and clasped Snape's wrist in what was not quite a handshake. An oddly formal gesture, but then, Snape thought, Harry still called him sir, too. Formality seemed to be the way he related most comfortably to Snape, and there was no reason to rip that away.

And then Harry changed even that by saying softly, "Thank you, Father," and walking down the hallway.

Snape stared after him. Absurdly, the first thought that occurred to him was to wonder what Regulus would have said, and the second, riding the knife-pain of the first, was to decide that Regulus would have liked to hear Harry call Snape "Father," whether Harry had taken the Black last name or not.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Draco started when the door opened. Harry stepped in and shut it quietly behind him, then must have told his magic to cast locking and warding spells according to its will, because Draco didn't recognize the lines of colored light that crawled over the door from any incantation.

"Harry?" he asked. Other times that Harry had been like this, moving this slowly, this calmly, this deliberately, he had had something upsetting to say, and would sit down and explain it in that rational manner that made Draco want to snarl at him.

Harry turned around.

Draco felt as if he'd been slapped. The amount of openness in Harry's eyes almost hurt, especially because he could see the shivering terror behind it. Harry stepped forward, and knelt in front of him—Draco was sitting on the bed—and took his hand. The gesture was manifestly not one of submission, though, Draco thought, dazed, or oath-swearing, not when Harry's magic hovered around him like the trailing edge of the Dark Lord's cloak.

"I've thought about what you said," said Harry, his fingers gently stroking the back of Draco's palm. "And I've come to the conclusion that there really _is_ one thing you want, more than all the others."

"Harry—" Draco tried to warn, though his throat was so thick he wondered if he could get the words out. He wanted this _so much_, but not if Harry was only giving it to him to gratify his desires, or because Harry thought it was something he needed, like comfort after his mother's death.

"Listen, for once!"

Draco lapsed into silence, blinking. Well, that was certainly different, both the sharp tone and the lightning that cleaved wings into Harry's shoulders. The lightning was gone as quickly as the similar white bolt that had consumed Regulus's body, but Draco could feel the charge lingering in the room with them, and knew Harry had been irritated.

_Irritated. When was the last time he felt that, instead of the rage that he felt when Hogwarts fell?_

Draco leaned back on the pillow, and gave a slow nod, though he never released Harry's hand. "I'm listening."

"I want to give you all of me." Harry's head cocked, the same gesture he used when he didn't understand something simple Draco tried to explain to him, but his eyes were intent and oh, so frightened. It was the fear that convinced Draco Harry did, in fact, know what he was doing. He would never have been so frightened if he were merely handing over something he thought Draco needed. "All the time. I just—that's what you want, Draco, isn't it?"

And even the plea at the end, the fear that he'd made a mistake, did not deter Draco, because Harry wasn't sounding as though this mistake were the end of the world. He just wanted to know if this was the answer to a question he'd wanted answered for a very long time.

Draco leaned forward and kissed him, hard enough to bruise. And Harry kissed back, pushed back, urged him down and then slid a knee in between Draco's legs. Draco arched and half-shrieked. He'd felt Harry's magic before, of course, but never like this. Even during the Halloween ritual, Harry had used it directly on Draco himself, to make the experience of having his cock sucked more intense. This felt as if the magic were under Harry's own skin, spines and spikes of pleasure that kept rubbing in the most unpredictable places, and might make anything feel good.

Harry pulled back and stared down at him, panting, and his eyes were full of lust.

Draco couldn't remember when he'd seen that outside a ritual.

For a moment, he was so excited that he couldn't even make a decision about what he wanted. Did he want to come quickly and then build up to a more intense orgasm later? Or did he want to draw this out, to see if he could tease what remained of Harry's self-control into shivering broken pieces? Or did he want to take Harry and see him give himself fully and freely over, as he hadn't done since the first time they made love, during Draco's Declaration to the Dark?

_No_, he decided at last, staring into Harry's eyes. _None of those. None of them are tests enough for what I want._

"Fuck me," he said.

Harry nodded. There was no pause to ask if Draco was sure, because if he wasn't sure, why would he have said it? There was no helpless response, the way that there had been during their Halloween ritual. Harry trusted him enough to think that Draco was telling the truth.

Draco couldn't remember when Harry had trusted him that much.

Harry snapped one hand in a casual, dismissive motion, and both their clothes were gone. He _could_ use his magic that way, of course, but Draco had never seen him use so much power for so trivial a purpose. He could feel the blast of concentrated air along his skin as the cloth vanished, and already, his erection was hard enough that pain as well as pleasure coursed along his groin.

"Please," he whispered. "Merlin, Harry, _fuck_ me."

And Harry heard the undertones in that word, too. _Don't hold back, don't do things that can only be attributed to a ritual forcing you through the steps, don't make slow and tender and patient and gentle love just because it's the kind of thing that you're more comfortable with._

Harry nodded, and leaned forward to kiss him one more time, and then whirled his magic around both of them like a cocoon. Draco's sight of the room vanished behind heavy blue-gray curtains, leaving him only Harry to look at.

Harry, with his shining green eyes with terror at the back of them, and black hair that looked wind-ruffled, and skin glistening with sweat already, and cock glittering with pre-come and a lubrication that the magic had put there, apparently by forcing it through his skin.

Draco keened a little. He didn't think he could help it, and he didn't think anyone with an ounce of human feeling would have blamed him. He spread his legs, but that was the most help he was going to give Harry.

He waited.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry knew he could do this. It was like flying against dragons. He was afraid, but it was the right thing to do, and, in the end, it would make _him_ as well as Draco feel good. The last time, it had been to stop the clamor and pressing of the dragons' wild thoughts on his mind. This time, it was to begin healing the breach that he had caused.

He did not delude himself into thinking the wound would be that easy to heal, or, for that matter, that he would get everything right. The wish to get everything right the first time had been what held him back for so long. He knew better now.

He leaned over Draco and kissed him, fiercely enough that his lips ached, and he felt Draco's lip bend backwards over his teeth. A few small drops of blood resulted. Harry gnawed at the split in Draco's lip, and then pulled back long enough to hold his eyes. Draco looked astonished, but delight was struggling to surface somewhere under the shock.

He moved his magic in precise, controlled sweeps, nothing comforting about them, nothing safe or sure. One spell coated his cock, one filled Draco with lubrication, and one did the work of fingers in widening the entrance to Draco's body. Draco blinked again, and the astonishment shone alone in his eyes for a moment. Harry didn't let it stop him. The roar of blood was loud in his ears, but he was sure—he had to be sure, so he was sure—that he would be able to hear Draco telling him to stop if it hurt, if he was too forceful, and that Draco _would_ tell him to stop.

If it hurt.

Harry pressed inward. This time, he rejoiced in the shove of his hips, the force of his longing to push, to dominate—something he'd never been allowed to do before, certainly not the first time he had sex with Draco or in the Halloween ritual or in any time since. The darkness in the pool at the back of his mind roared, and Harry felt it pour through him. Like his magic, he was coming to realize, it didn't require blood and killing to be happy. It just required that the work be—intense.

Draco made sharp squeaking noises at times, but Harry hesitated only once, when he was fully inside and Draco still heaved and huffed and sounded upset. It was trouble to wait, when his blood pulsed through him and told him to _move_, but he sat still nevertheless, eyes on Draco's, until he received a nod.

And then he let himself _move_.

He'd never done this before, and his mind was a firestorm of conflicting impressions: the warmth surrounding him, the whirl of his magic and his blood through his veins, Draco's eyes wide open and staring into his face, the blond hair plastered flat to the pillow with sweat, the endless motion of his body. He couldn't hold himself back, and he didn't want to. There was nothing to fear here. There was a great deal to trust. He only had to give himself to that, and he would.

Thrust and shove and push. This was not so hard, after all. He instinctively knew how to do it. And it instinctively felt so good that he wondered absently how he _had_ held himself back for so long.

_Perhaps that's one of the true evils of my mother's training._

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Draco didn't think he'd ever felt so smug or so satisfied, and Harry had done nothing more than move inside him for two minutes.

_He did it. He wants me. I'm the only one he wants in his bed._

That fulfilled an old, old want, and laid an even older fear to rest. Was Harry only doing this because he had to? Would he have done the same thing if anyone was in love with him and requesting it?

But, no. His eyes saw _Draco_, and it was _Draco_ he wanted. His eyes never wavered from their steady gaze. His body never faltered in its task, even when Draco skidded up the blankets a bit, or when Harry pressed deep and hit his prostate, making him give a wince that would have panicked the old Harry.

_How did he do this?_

Then Draco forgot about that, because, Merlin, Harry's hand had come to rest right where he wanted it, on his cock.

He saw Harry's lips move, though the pleasure was exploding through his head so hard that he couldn't hear the words. A moment later, the surface of his eyes seemed to split, and Draco passed easily into his mind. Harry had forged a bond between them, of sorts, enough to allow Draco to feel his emotions and see his surface thoughts. Draco didn't know if Harry was feeling the same from him.

Harry's pleasure was _heavy_, admitting the pleasure of his partner as an equal but not overwhelming component. Draco found himself thinking of bears, of intense, dark couplings in secret caves without light. Harry's magic was everywhere, stinging, singing, springing, coiling inward and coming down with a howl that Draco echoed a moment later when, entirely by surprise, his orgasm came on him.

He thought, as he thrashed and spent himself and Harry's fist grew slick enough to nearly slide off him, that that was the shortest time he'd ever lasted.

It was also the best he'd ever felt.

Harry pushed him flat, and then began the kind of hard fucking that Draco had thought they'd have from the beginning, though he certainly wasn't complaining about what had happened so far. In favor of brutality, Harry had adopted intensity, and it had worked. Draco grinned a bit. Trust Harry to give him what he wanted, but not exactly in the way Draco had thought he would.

He lifted his legs and wrapped them around Harry's waist, while Harry thrust into him, gasping and mumbling little curse words that Draco wished he wouldn't bite off. He'd thought for a while that Harry had a naturally dirty mouth during sex. The glimpse he'd just had into his partner's thoughts confirmed it.

_Partner._

Yes, they really were now.

Draco stretched up and kissed Harry, and that was when Harry came. He stiffened for a moment, then pushed forward earnestly again, and again, and again, gasping and moaning into Draco's mouth, his head rolling slack on his neck, and after a moment his mouth was too busy gasping in air for him to say anything at all. The singing of his magic in Draco's ears had soared to a pitch like crickets, the last night before summer ended.

Then Harry fell full-length across him, and Draco lost his own breath in the resulting press on his lungs.

He didn't mind. He didn't mind at all.

He held still and stroked Harry's spine again and again. Harry was breathing softly, not completely asleep, but somewhere near it. Draco curled his fingers in his hair—the grip had to be deep, or otherwise his hand would have slipped free at once, given all the wetness there—and tugged a bit. It was a gesture he'd used before, to convey how possessive he felt about Harry, but he'd never used it with the viciousness he used now. Harry moaned, but didn't protest beyond that.

_He's mine. No one else ever got to see this side of him, and no one else will._

Harry lifted himself up and looked down at him with unshielded eyes. The bond between them had ended, since it seemed Harry's magic didn't like to hold that unless he commanded it to do so, but he still didn't have any Occlumency there, and Draco could make out languid satisfaction and easy contentment.

Harry bent down and kissed him again.

"I don't think I can be ready again so soon," Draco whispered, though he felt his cock shift a bit in interest.

"Then I'll play with you until you are," Harry replied, and blew on Draco's ears, watching with almost academic interest as he jumped. "And this time, I want you to fuck me. I'm not missing out on all the fun."

Draco let out a breath, and, just like that, the fears he had still nourished burned. Now they were the emotions that seemed faint and fragile, and the hope that which had conquered.

_He's mine._


	83. Whirling Round and Round

This is one of those non-linear chapters again, flickering back and forth through time. Just so you know.

**Chapter Sixty-Seven: Whirling Round and Round**

Harry leaned briefly back against Draco, then turned, a fire in his eyes. "You're ready."

"Yes," Draco said. _Never readier, _he thought. Merlin, he wanted this so much, at least if it would work the way they thought it would. He and Harry had planned this for hours, but, as Harry was fond of saying, the battle splintered the plans for the battle. The gathering beyond the doors, the official opening ceremony for the new Ministry, could interrupt their delicately laid political configurations.

Harry grinned at him. "Yes, you would be."

Draco wished Harry wouldn't _look_ like that sometimes. It made it difficult to refrain from kissing him, and they were supposed to be thinking about other things right now. Draco restrained himself to one kiss on Harry's nose. No one would see, he told himself. They were standing in an anteroom with the doors shut in front of them, only a slender line of light leaking out to fall on Harry's face and hair. No one could have been in here without Harry's patrolling magic sensing them, in any case. So he and Harry were safe to indulge themselves in affection that might make some of their opponents think of them as weak.

Besides, making people think of them as weak could be an advantage, Draco thought. Curious to see what would happen, he kept his arm in place around Harry's waist as the doors swung open, exposing them to an assemblage of devouring stares. Harry wrinkled his nose, but stepped forward, walking within the circle of Draco's grip.

"You can do this?" Draco breathed into his ear.

"I'll have to, won't I?" Harry replied. Since his Occlumency hadn't come back, he showed his resentment of the whole procedure, but he didn't back down. Draco felt as though his heart had lit on fire with pride.

"Of course you will," he said. "Meanwhile, I have to go associate with Elizabeth Nonpareil. Pity me."

Harry laughed at him, and then turned towards the cluster of Ministry officials in the middle of the room, including Cupressus Apollonis. Draco stayed with him long enough for a few photos to be taken, and for anyone who might care to see that he was firmly planted at Harry's side, and Harry was most definitely _taken_.

Then he headed for the cluster of Dark families who were being stupid about having nonhumans in the Ministry, the plan ticking over and over in his mind like clockwork. He and Harry had spent hours on this, talking and mingling their thoughts and pooling political knowledge gained from Lucius, Snape, Harry's training in the history of Dark families, and what Cupressus and Miriam had reported of the Light families they were slowly guiding into the Ministry. It should work.

_And if it doesn't, I can ride the chaos._

Elizabeth Nonpareil approached him in a rustle of black skirts bright with artificial stars. Draco reached out and bowed over her hand, sliding into the first words of the ritual greeting he needed to impress her. "Dark water singing over its stones is not more welcome than the sight of your face, madam."

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

He could not but pluck and tug and weave now, and spin the fabric of dreams, and hope it would be enough.

He was alone. He lay in the dirt under the darkness of where it had all begun, and where it would all end, and pulled through dreams. Slowly, now, he must travel slowly. He had moved too far, too fast, the first time, and that had left visible signs, the dark circles on the skin of his victims. Someone would notice if those circles appeared now.

His heir would notice.

He was not dead, was old Lord Voldemort. He was alive, and only shedding his skin now, like a great snake lying far underground, like the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets, like the Midgard Serpent curled around the oceans and which would rise someday to devour the world—a teaching that had heard from an old dying wizard, the last of his breed, in Norway, a wrong story both by the teachings of other kinds of magic and by the Norse myths themselves, but there nevertheless. And true, he thought, did dark Lord Voldemort, in the darkness. Serpents always survived everything, always ate everything in the end. If the Midgard Serpent did not strangle the necks of everyone who thought of themselves as human, dragon fire would burn them to ashes.

He would shed the skin, and he would _rise_. The vernal equinox was not far away. The world tilted relentlessly back towards the balance between Dark and Light, from the darkest night to the day when the darkness and light were of equal lengths. And from there the sun would return and swell until Midsummer.

Before Midsummer, his heir would be his.

He had been wrong, had old Lord Voldemort, in what he had sought to do with the attacks on the Ministry and Hogwarts—wrong in action, but not wrong in intent. He had wanted to make Harry despair, and then kill him. The second part was unnecessary; he could see that now. The first part still must be.

And there was the third, lying in darkness couched like a serpent himself, though none of them had recognized the signs that marked him as serpentine. And there was the other, the dreamer, the snake in the breast.

Come the first day of spring, and that snake would _bite_. And Harry would never survive what was coming.

He missed his Indigena, did old Lord Voldemort, almost like a snake in the drape of her vines, but the third was a trap set and baited long before. Even Indigena had danced to its movements, her feet echoing the coils of the snake that lay far underground.

Snakes made mountains. The hills of the world were the ridges of their spines. Their tails curled into peninsulas. Inside their jaws were sacred caves where the oldest wizards had held the oldest rites.

He was not afraid. He moved relentlessly out of the darkness, towards the day of his light and his biting, like an old serpent, and in the meantime he wove and spun the fabric of dreams.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Connor held Parvati's eyes. After a moment, she flushed and looked away, shaking her head.

"I don't know," she said, as if the words were being hooked out of her, dragged out of her.

"That's fine," Connor hastened to reassure her. He _had_ reassured her, several times already, but he would say it as many times as he needed to. At least she hadn't given him an outright refusal. "Just think about it, all right? I wouldn't want to do it tomorrow night, anyway. That's when Harry's big official Ministry gathering is, and I have to go and deploy some of those Light rituals I'm studying."

He said that hoping to get a smile out of her, but what he got was Parvati exhaling a frustrated breath. "I don't understand you sometimes, Connor," she said.

Connor cocked his head, and waited.

"You—well, you don't have any _reason_ to conduct—this—this way." Parvati waved a hand vaguely. Connor knew what she meant, the question he'd asked her and the context that surrounded it, but he wouldn't ask her to say the word if she was that uncomfortable with it. "Your heritage doesn't require you to. And you know that my parents will be angry if they find out."

"Do you want to tell them?" Connor asked. That wasn't something he'd thought of before. Parvati had been beyond angry when her parents appealed to the Ministry to force her to come home. She still wasn't speaking with them, and had had a fight with Padma before she went back, too.

"No!" Parvati said, almost shouted. She clapped a hand over her mouth, swallowed, turned red in the face, and then lowered her hand. "No, not yet," she said, showing Connor a faint smile. Connor nodded, reassured that she wouldn't ask him to keep it secret forever. "It's more that I don't know what to make of you, Connor. Why would you start trying to learn Light pureblood rituals now, when you've never been interested in them before?" Her face flushed even more deeply, but she kept going. "Why would you want to make adult decisions when you seem to enjoy acting like a child so much? Why would you want to have a life like this, when the war could surge back up and swallow it at any moment?"

Oh, _that_. She should have asked him before.

Connor reached out and took her hand, running his fingers lightly over the knuckles. Parvati looked him in the face and didn't ask him to stop. Connor wondered idly if she could feel him reaching after the words. He did know the answer, but he wanted to make sure he phrased it as perfectly as possible. He had noted with Harry that people often paid as much attention to the _how_ of his words as the _what_.

"Because I don't think like other people," he said at last. "They see themselves as living in the future. They want to be adults now. They progress along a path. They're children, then teenagers, then adults. And they know that happiness waits for them in the future. They might not have it right now, but they'll have it some time. They know it.

"I think that's _stupid._" He chose that word because some of the other ones he wanted to say would make Parvati slap him. "I think you should have happiness where you find it, and not ignore it because you think you're not ready for it or because some greater happiness is somewhere down the path." He looked up at Parvati. "What would have happened if Harry and Draco had waited? Nothing good, I don't think. One of them might have been killed before now. And what would happen if I insisted that I was still just a teenager because I've seventeen? Stupid things. I wouldn't have been able to accept Sirius's death, or that I wasn't the Boy-Who-Lived, and I wouldn't have been able to tell anyone about Harry's true role in the prophecy. I had to be adult to do that. And I don't want to be adult all the time now, or teenager all the time now. I want to act the way I need to act. So sometimes that's like a child, and sometimes that's like a teenager." He took a deep breath and locked his eyes on her. "And sometimes that's like an adult. I'm not—I don't stop being one just because people think I should. I don't _do_ things just because people think I should, so why should I grow like they say I should? I learned that from Harry, you know, or maybe we learned it together. We take a long time to make up our minds about something, but when we want it, we go after it with our whole hearts."

And now he felt shy, which was stupid, but he also hadn't said all that with the most eloquent words in the world, so he kissed Parvati on the cheek and left her there. At least she looked as if she were thinking about what he'd said.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry could feel Draco, he thought, as he spoke with Cupressus Apollonis, polite nothings about the way the Ministry had opened and the reaction it had received so far. It was nothing so simple as a magical bond. Rather, he knew where Draco was in the room, knew exactly how many paces he'd have to walk to get to him, and could guess what he was talking about right now.

_Well, why not? I wanted this. I want this. And I feel more about him than anyone else._

"And this is Belinda Morningmaid."

Harry eyed the woman in front of him coolly, making sure to keep his bow polite. It would hide the pulse fluttering wildly in his throat, as well as answer for manners. This was the first time he was going to have a political conversation since he'd fallen off the mountain.

He'd heard of the Morningmaid family before this, nothing objectionable—but then Cupressus had owled him with a long list of demands that Belinda had made of the Ministry. She wanted laws to prevent _any_ nonhumans from working there, even the close association that the old Ministry had had with Gringotts. She called them halfbreeds, and said that too many of them were Dark creatures. It was Cupressus's opinion that many of the people backing her didn't believe the same things. They were using her as a test case, a fall witch. If she crumpled, it would not hurt them, but if she got away with it, they could successfully assert themselves against nonhumans.

Harry was resigned to such power games always existing. And in the old days, he would have talked to Belinda with patience and calmness and gentleness, trying to make sure he never crushed her will, and she probably would have taken that as permission to keep pressing forward, just the way Aurora Whitestag had.

But now his mind had changed. He was certain that her mind could be changed, as well.

He shifted to the left, and knew that Draco was to his right. "If you wish, Mrs. Morningmaid, we can talk over here without fear of interruption," he murmured. It was one of the many alcoves in the Ministry's Grand Hall that the architects had designed, and Harry sculpted, for private conversation.

"Call me Belinda, please." She arranged herself in front of him, a pretty woman with the usual yellow eyes of the Light purebloods and bright golden curls, touched with red, that made her resemble one of the Gloryflower family. "I'm glad that you decided to talk with me, Mr. Black. I know the Ministry is just finding its feet, but I think this is the time to make it for humans only."

"That's impossible," Harry said.

Belinda froze, and stared at him carefully. Harry wondered if she was more startled by his cold tone or his bluntness. She recovered quickly, of course, and said, "It's not, Mr. Black. It's truly not. I understand that, as _vates_, you're committed to the causes of magical creatures, but they don't need to participate in human law. We need an area of life where we're separated from them, don't you agree?"

"No," Harry pointed out, and watched her face flush red.

"Mr. Black, if they _won't_ obey our laws, then they can't have a part in the Ministry," she said, and then seemed to calm and retreat a little behind the political mask. "Besides, they wouldn't want us claiming jurisdiction over them."

"We always have," said Harry. "We act as though we had the right to tell them where to live, how to live. How, then, can we leave them out of the Ministry? There's so much that we don't know, Belinda. We have to have advice on what customs of theirs might require compromise, and when we're doing something right."

"We _can't_ have different magical rules for everyone," Belinda snapped, flexing her fingers as if they stung.

"We can have an adaptive set of rules." Harry was trying to be polite, he really was, but his temper was boiling behind his eyes. He was beginning to think that Belinda didn't really believe she would get what she wanted, either. She was just testing him to see what would happen. It was the way that pureblood wizards had reacted to Muggleborn wizards in the old Ministry, after all; they said all the right things in public, but in private they pushed for concessions, for different laws that restricted Muggleborn children while not restricting pureblood, and got them. It might have been different if there had been special laws restricting pureblood magic, too, but that wasn't the way it worked. "And that's what we'll have. As situations arise, we'll handle them. There might be some centaur behavior we can't tolerate, for example. The Grand Unified Theory might find out that goblin magic functions in a certain way that means it needs to be kept apart from delicate magical instruments. But we don't _know_ that yet. I refuse to create rules about an unknown situation." He held Belinda's eye and dared her to get angry.

She did, but he knew it only from the tightening of her lips. She was a little late in controlling her face, he thought, but better than he would have expected from her initial approach. "We need rules _now_, Mr. Black, not at some undefined point in the future."

"We'll have them," said Harry, with a sweep of one hand. "A base to start from. We'll adjust them as necessary. I simply refuse to say that, right now, we know everything we must about goblins and centaurs sufficient to create rules for them. We'll need their input for that." He turned around as the doors of the hall opened. "And I believe we're about to get some," he added.

The _hanarz_ came in first, wrapped in chains, surrounded by goblins wearing pendants of silver and bronze and carrying spears. Beside her was Griselda Marchbanks, scowling triumphantly at the shocked witches and wizards. Harry wondered, amused, if she was happier to be seen in the company of goblins or happy that so many people were horrified to see her there.

Following them came three centaurs, one black, one chestnut, one bay. They walked in perfect time, and stood with folded arms in the center of the floor, daring the wizards to come up and speak to them. Harry cleared his throat and stepped forward.

"Please welcome the _hanarz_ of the southern goblins," he said, using _Sonorus_ to make his voice boom from the walls, "and her human friend Griselda Marchbanks. The centaur emissaries are Lycaon, Wolf, and Hemlock." The centaurs bowed in turn as he spoke their names. "And we have more guests," Harry went on serenely, turning towards the doors. He could feel the crowd's apprehensive gazes following his, and Belinda's burning eyes on the back of his neck. He didn't bother hiding his smile.

Draco was on the other side of the doors, just where they'd arranged for him to be. Harry met his gaze and felt a tunnel traveling between them, pulsing with breath and life. His mouth widened into a grin this time, and he barely looked away in time to watch Remus arrive.

He wasn't alone, of course, being flanked by Peregrine and a few of the other alphas from London, but he was the tallest, and the one that other people here were most likely to know. Harry met his eyes and held them. Into that gaze, he tried to put everything he felt for Remus, the old love and the new confusion, and the near inability to ever trust him again. Remus nodded slightly, saying that he understood.

And Draco moved out to greet and present the werewolves. Harry smiled again. This time, he was sure it looked victorious. There were no words to express how little he cared about that. The interest of the _vates_ in some nonhumans was to be expected. The intercession of the Malfoy heir was not.

"Remus Lupin," Draco announced, to a tide of whispers and a sun-round of more intense stares, "Peregrine, Willow, and Daranda, four alphas of the London werewolf packs." He bowed, one time for each of them. "Be welcome."

The whispering grew louder. The other alphas, all women, seemed amused. Remus was still looking at Harry, though, and Harry didn't understand everything that he was trying to say. He was still new to this business of reading people's faces with his own emotions in the way.

"Yes, be welcome here," Harry said, making sure that his gaze took in goblins, centaurs, and werewolves, "as part and parcel of the new Ministry, as subject to its laws, and welcome to its help." He gave a little bow, and then moved forward and took Draco's hand. The bond between them stretched tight, then fell slack as they neared, and Draco nodded to him imperceptibly. Harry relaxed. He had hoped that Draco wouldn't have an objection to dancing with him in public, but he could have changed his mind. He had been hesitant about this part of the plan when Harry suggested it. When Harry asked why, he'd snapped at him not to push.

It had taken a while for the sting of _that_ to fade, but, well. Harry had to accept that they lived in a world where they snapped at each other now, and not every mistake was for life. And it was going to be nothing compared to the sting of the Imbolc ritual coming up in a few days.

He held up his hand, and the walls began to sing. More people than just the ones who had come here hoping to wring concessions out of them looked startled at that. Harry caught Cupressus's eyes, and knew the man was wondering if he had built music into the stones. Harry shrugged. He hadn't. He had just wanted the stones to sing, and so they had: the same kind of frenzied music that played on Walpurgis Night, though slow enough that mortal feet could keep up with it.

He and Draco began to dance, a simple whirling pattern that people hastily cleared the floor for. Harry was delighted to see that the first couple to follow them out was Remus and Peregrine, Remus bowing to the other alpha before he extended his hand to her, and the second was Zacharias and Hermione. Hermione's chin was so high that Harry guessed she'd just been talking to some snotty purebloods who still disputed the claims of Muggleborns to any kind of recognition.

"How did it go?" Harry asked, as he and Draco unclasped hands, briefly turned their backs to each other, and then came together again. No one was going to hear them under the music.

"Mrs. Nonpareil is going to be a problem," Draco murmured. "Spoke too well about her connections in France for my liking. I think she still values the International Confederation's ruling too much. She doesn't think of you as a child so much as someone who—well. Who shouldn't be doing what you're doing to expose the magical world to the Muggles."

"How influential is she?" Harry turned around, clapped his hands as the music soared to an intense pitch, turned back.

Draco snorted. "Most of the people around her know she's an idiot. Problem is that she's got money. _Vaults_ of it. And she just removed it from Gringotts, so we can't depend on the _hanarz_ controlling her."

"Not susceptible to bribery, then," Harry muttered.

"Harry," Draco chided, a purr in his voice. "I didn't say _that_. Everyone is susceptible to bribery. Money just won't work with Elizabeth Nonpareil, after all. But there are other things she wants."

Harry turned his head curiously to him. "You found a solution, didn't you?"

Draco looked smug.

"Are you going to tell me?"

"Perhaps I should let you linger in suspense a bit longer," Draco murmured, but his own eagerness to show off his cleverness overcame his desire for mystery, as Harry had known it would. "She admires beauty, Harry. Caged birds that sing sweetly. Old tapestries. Portraits of young wizards and witches."

"And?" Harry prompted.

"I told her you could get her a bird such as she's never seen before," Draco murmured, "silver and white, with a peacock's tail and a cockatoo's crest, which weeps crystal tears when it sings. She believed me. You're the _vates_, and she thinks I'm too young to lie effectively."

Harry frowned. "I don't know any bird—"

"That's why your magic will make it, idiot," Draco interrupted.

Harry spent a moment looking at him. Draco looked back, head up as if he were a deer offering his throat to the hunters, his eyes rich.

And it would have been so easy to just laugh and agree, or argue with Draco that a _vates_ couldn't create a magical bird and then leave it in the care of someone who would mistreat it, but neither was what he felt, so Harry used honesty.

"I would have preferred to be asked rather than volunteered into the exotic pet trade," he said dryly.

"So sorry," Draco murmured, dropping his head to lip along Harry's neck. "I could hardly come over and ask you."

"I know." Harry sighed and moved Draco's head away from his neck. He was too distracting. "I'll make the damn bird for her, because you promised. But it's going to be able to open its cage and escape if she becomes too much for it, and it will sing and cry most of the time. Such as when she's trying to sleep, in fact."

Draco lowered his eyes. "I only told her that I'd heard of the bird," he said. "I didn't say I knew _every_ detail of its behavior."

And this, Harry could believe, and did not mind, and knew, and loved.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Connor frowned. "Well, no."

"Why _not_?" Michael had his arms crossed in front of him again, which was always a bad sign.

Connor rolled his eyes. He didn't think he needed to be _tender_ with the other boy. Michael would never learn if he didn't receive clear signals. "You can't demand that other people give you respect."

"You did."

Connor shook his head. "No, I just waited in the background until I got pushed into the foreground again." He grimaced. The memory of his name being pulled out of the Goblet of Fire really wasn't his fondest one. "And then, when situations came up where respect between me and Harry mattered, I _gave_ it. You have to do that, or you can't expect others to respect and admire you." He left unsaid that he thought Michael wanted Draco's admiration, and that was a doomed cause. Draco _loved _a few people, but admired himself, and maybe his own reflection in a mirror, and no one else.

"You still don't often show decorum around other people," Michael said, but at least he uncrossed his arms. "I've seen the way you act around Professor Snape and Draco and Harry." He kept his head down and massaged the burn on his face from Voldemort's magic during the last words, but Connor could hear just fine. Yes, there was still a curl of longing in his voice when he mentioned Draco. Connor wondered why the others couldn't notice it.

"Harry understands me," said Connor mildly. "I can act _almost_ however I want around him, and get away with it. So I do. And I don't respect Professor Snape all that much. No matter how many bad things happen to you in your life, you can't use that as an excuse forever. I'm trying to stay away from him now that Regulus Black's death just happened, but during our school years? He yelled at people like Neville for _no reason_. He never even hated Neville's parents. He just decided that the whole world hated him, and so that was another reason to be a sadistic wanker right back. He never asked the world for its opinion." That was one thing Connor did wonder about. The way Snape acted towards Connor was stupid, but understandable, given James and Sirius. But—Neville? Had Harry never noticed, or did he not care, or had he forgiven Snape for it so long ago that it didn't matter to him any more? It still mattered to Neville, Connor knew. He still shook a bit when in the same room with Snape, and Snape would snap at him like a rabid dog. He'd done that when they made preparations to go after the Ravenclaw Horcrux and Neville was helping them identify the plants he thought might be in the garden.

"And Draco?"

_Not just longing, _Connor thought, staring hard into Michael's eyes. _Admiration, and desire, and resentment of Harry._

But he didn't want to get into the argument that would result from that, so he shrugged and said, "Sometimes I respect him. Sometimes I don't." He grinned. "He hates that."

Michael drummed his fingers on the kitchen table. "Why not be consistent?"

"This way is more fun," said Connor, but relented when Michael glared at him. "All right. The real reason is that _he_ varies, too. So when he's helping Harry, or when he's acting as if he actually sees the world beyond the end of his nose, or when he does something and it's—good, like the way he transformed into his Animagus form before I did, I have to respect that. But then he'll act like a child again, and snap at me when I'm not doing anything, and act as if the whole world should kiss his feet because he was born a Malfoy. So I treat him as if he were a child."

"He's not," Michael whispered.

"We weren't talking about him," said Connor. "We were talking about you."

"I want Dr—people to respect me."

"So respect them," Connor repeated.

"It's hard," Michael whinged.

Connor patted his hand. "I know."

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

So slow, in the darkness. That was the main danger of the weaving, that he would grow impatient and jerk the fabric too quickly, pull against the dreams of yearning and hatred and ambition that were his one chance.

But serpents were patient. And he needed to be patient, this old Lord Voldemort. He needed to lie in the darkness and smell the dirt and contemplate. Then he would rise, when the skin was shed, rubbed off on the rough rocks.

There would be despair.

Harry had found answers. He was good at them. A snake for the diary, a Black for the locket, a Malfoy for the ring, a McGonagall for the Sword, a second Black for the wand. He would, perhaps, find a Rosier for the cup.

But not all questions had answers.

The third waited.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Draco lay in silence on their bed, stroking Harry's hair. Harry had fallen asleep immediately after they returned, muttering something about living in the midst of his emotions being an exercise in exhaustion.

Draco considered the evening, and whether it had gone well, whether it had been the real Harry in the room with him, and Harry looking at him, and Harry responding to him, or the calm automaton he had seen so often.

He had to smile at his last thought. _Not so calm anymore, not when he shows his irritation in every move._

But there had been moments when he wanted more attention, when he would have liked some response instead of Harry to simply think about it and then ask questions. On the other hand, Harry had looked at him before they danced, before they entered the room, and many times, expressively, when he went up to Mrs. Nonpareil and promised her the bird she wanted. So he was trying. It wasn't perfect yet, but there was time to gain more from him, to pull out more of the things he didn't even _realize_ yet that Draco wanted.

_And you could try talking to him, too._

Draco paused. Then his hand resumed stroking Harry's hair, more slowly.

It was a revelation. He thought Harry should know what he wanted, because he'd told him in the past often enough, and one of those things was for Harry to know his moods, instantly, and his needs. But did that _have_ to happen all the time? Why couldn't he offer help, and demand attention when Harry faltered or looked away? Harry was used to his demanding things.

And…well. Draco would not admit this aloud where anyone could hear, because it sounded so Gryffindor, but he did not entirely understand Harry, either, and could not predict his every mood and desire. He supposed it might not be entirely _fair_ to require absolute understanding from Harry when he couldn't offer it back.

He gave a shiver, to get the Gryffindor squeamishness off him.

He'd ask for more. But first had to come the Imbolc ritual, and that, Draco was _not_ looking forward to. It was not the deepest ritual of the three-year dance, not the most intense, but it was going to be the ugliest.

It would show him what his life would have been like if Harry had never existed, and Harry the reverse.

Draco sighed and closed his eyes. It was the end of January. A few days remained until the second of February.

Harry was warm in his arms, snoring softly, muscles more relaxed than Draco could ever remember feeling them before. Darkness, ugliness, and pain could wait.


	84. Slimy Mud and Rotten Wood

**Chapter Sixty-Eight: Slimy Mud and Rotten Wood**

"Why does this one start at dawn?" Harry asked.

"You read the ritual justification," Draco said, and his voice had turned snappish. Harry could hear him fidgeting, though not see him. They had to sit in darkness until the sun rose, when the ritual actually took effect. A day had to pass without their seeing each other. Harry wondered if it counted that he sometimes saw the dim outline of Draco's head when glancing towards the window, or caught a sight of his hair from a stray beam of starlight.

"I did," Harry said, letting his irritation leak out around his teeth. "And I don't understand it. We had to stop seeing each other at midnight, and not see each other until the next midnight. So why doesn't the ritual start at midnight, instead of starting at dawn and ending at sunset the way it does? We spend hours in darkness without being allowed to see each other, but the ritual isn't actually in effect then."

"That's it," said Draco. "That's the point. To see if we can refrain from the sight of each other even when we could have it just by casting a _Lumos_. And then we'll be taken away from each other, and reunited in darkness, and _then_ allowed to see each other. It's a ritual to cure the partners of taking each other for granted." His voice dripped with irony that Harry hated.

"I still don't think it makes sense," Harry whinged. He winced a moment later. Sometimes he felt as if he'd taken a Babbling Potion. He was still learning when it was better to keep things to himself. Not even people who had lived while falling from the mountain all their lives, like Draco, said everything that crossed their minds. For the moment, though, Harry was more worried about being accused of dishonesty, so he let everything out.

"It doesn't _have_ to make sense," Draco said. "It's a ritual. Now. Did you make all the preparations that we'll need for a day of being out of contact?"

Harry gave a sharp nod, feeling safe to do that, because Draco couldn't see him anyway. "Yes," he said, modulating his own voice to be a little calmer. "I've told the Ministry officials that any questions will have to wait. I've argued most of those who opposed letting nonhumans into the Ministry to a standstill, anyway. There's been no movement on the international front since that letter from Alexandre days ago." It had startled Harry more than a little when he received an owl from the Dark Lord, but apparently Alexandre had sent it to step around the Pact's injunction that Harry and Jing-Xi could not speak to each other. "I think we're as safe as we'll ever be to leave the world behind for a little while."

Draco fumbled and shuffled next to him. Harry didn't know what he was doing until hands caught his chin and tilted it up. He went without protest, and blinked when the kiss landed just a little to the right of his lips.

"I'm going to miss you," Draco whispered.

And _there_ it was, another of those jewel-like moments that people like Connor, who normally got to see only Draco's selfish exterior, would never understand, Harry thought, as he looped his arms around Draco's waist in return. Draco hated moments of emotional weakness, had been trained to hate them. And most of the time, he seemed to agree with and accept that training. That he could lay down those defenses with Harry in private and come out of his shell bespoke a trust that Harry couldn't blame him for not extending to other people, and felt honored to have himself.

"I'm glad it's just for one day," he said back, and hoped that his voice would carry all the quiet emotion he wanted it to, since Draco couldn't see his expression.

Harry felt it then, the shifting of waves of light and power under the earth. The window of their room seemed to shimmer with gold, though Harry knew the sun couldn't have risen enough to fill it yet. He lifted a hand to shield his eyes as sudden, searing white light flooded the room a moment later.

A calm voice spoke into his ear, a voice without gender or age or inflection.

"_It is dawn._"

And then the white swept him, shining, away from Draco, and into a vision of what his life would have been like without him. Harry thought he felt a touch of fingers across his, a near-clasp of his wrist, and then he was gone.

In fact, the whole of _him_ was gone. What awaited him was another world, another life, within the mind of a Harry Potter who had always been the way he was.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Draco leaned back and folded his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling of the four-poster bed. Greg and Vince sat by the door, keeping other people barricaded out. In fact, those "other people" were only Blaise, but Draco had wanted some time to himself in the first-year boys' bedroom, and they insured he got it.

Draco had been feeling more and more sullen in school lately. Oh, he put effort forth in public, of course; he did well in his studies, which was expected, and he sneered at people of opposing Houses, and he made himself felt as a force in Slytherin, and he either avoided trouble altogether or made sure he didn't get caught at it. His discontent was so private that someone could only have known about it by both knowing him inside and out _and_ spying on any moment he was alone. Draco was irrationally sure that both his father and Professor Snape knew about it, but neither had approached him.

He had not expected to be so _bored_ at Hogwarts.

Oh, he had thought of it, once or twice, at the beginning of the year, when he walked in through the doors of the Great Hall, and saw the Sorting Hat sitting on its stool, just the way he had expected, and everything else had happened as he expected, too—his own Sorting into Slytherin, his friends' Sorting with him, and the sending of that damn Connor Potter, who had been so rude to Draco on the train, into Gryffindor. And since then, everything had happened as he expected.

There were _no_ surprises. There were no shocks of joy or new experience, the way Draco had hoped there would be when he first left Malfoy Manor for Hogwarts. The only time he really wasn't in control was during his encounters with Potter, and that only happened because Potter was a _brat_ coddled by the whole of the school other than Professor Snape and Slytherin House.

His father would say that was good. Lucius Malfoy had spent a long time telling Draco the value of carefully-researched plans, and situations that went exactly the way you wanted them to. Surprise and interest wasn't the point. The interest lay in watching other people do exactly as you thought they would. And later, when one had learned their patterns of behavior well enough, they would dance to cues that you gave them, to imperatives that you planted and convinced them were their own. That conception of life had helped Lucius Malfoy be a successful politician for years. Draco knew it, and he knew he was destined to follow in his father's footsteps, too. He should have been happy that his life was the way he'd been told it would be. After all, a lack of joyful surprises meant a lack of painful and debilitating surprises, too. Slytherins took risks when necessary, but it was always good _not_ to have to take risks, because they could always fail.

But—

Draco was bored.

He took a deep breath and sat up. He had to do something before his temper got the better of him and he started "acting up," the way his father called it, just to get attention and _change_ things. He'd done it sometimes while he was still a child, and it had driven his parents both mad. He couldn't do it now that he was supposed to be in school and an adult. Besides, the problem was with him, not Hogwarts, which was exactly what he had expected.

So he would change himself.

He would ask his father to teach him more about the Dark Arts over Christmas holidays.

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry spat blood and didn't look up. What had happened to him wasn't important. He didn't even really know why he'd been called to the Headmaster's office. This sort of thing happened every day. It was only recently that it had escalated into bloody violence, and only the worst of poor luck that Professor McGonagall had come around the corner in time to see it. Harry wouldn't fight back, though he could have blasted his assailants away from him with a spell. His mother had told him _not_ to attract any attention, and Harry had done very well at that so far. For a while, Professor Snape had seemed to suspect him of hiding trained magic, but Harry had convinced him that he was innately worthless, James Potter's son and no more.

The rest of the Slytherins were convinced of that, too, which led to—this. Harry touched his jaw, and decided that it was well on the way back to normal, even without a healing potion from Madam Pomfrey. Professor McGonagall had actually dragged him to Dumbledore instead of the hospital wing after she found the fifth-year Slytherins attacking him. Harry couldn't see why. A few healing potions, a few glamours, and life would go on as normal. Everyone around him hated him, thought he didn't fit in to his House, and were more infuriated by his refusal to fight back and his silent resilience than anything else. Harry didn't care. He would get through this, because it was just another burden on the path to be got through. His goal was to serve Connor, not to make friends in a place he didn't belong.

"Harry."

Harry looked up calmly at the Headmaster. Dumbledore was leaning forward, and his face was grave. Harry's eyebrows rose. _What's the matter with him? He knows the nature of sacrifice. He knows the importance of my mission. Nothing can be changed. But he looks as though something can._

"I have never wanted to contest the Sorting Hat's judgment," Dumbledore said, slowly, as if he were feeling out the confines of unfamiliar territory. "But now—I feel I must. I have never seen a student less suited to his House." He paused, but Harry didn't volunteer anything. He wasn't supposed to complain. It would draw attention. "Harry, do you feel you belong in Slytherin?"

Someone had asked him outright, and that person was a Light wizard. That meant he could respond.

"No, sir," Harry said quietly. He heard Professor McGonagall, standing off to the side, let loose a victorious sniff. Harry gave her a sidelong glance. She'd given his attackers detention in such a cold tone that he had been surprised to look at the walls and find them still stone instead of ice. He had been more surprised that she bothered, though. Why should she care if the older Slytherins wanted to discipline him?

"And why not, Harry?" Dumbledore prompted gently, stealing Harry's attention back.

Harry turned around. "I have no friends," he said simply. "No one trusts me because I'm the brother of the Boy-Who-Lived, and they think I'm there to spy on them. Professor Snape hates me because of who our father is, and our godfather. I don't wish to practice Dark Arts. I don't like or trust anyone there."

Dumbledore's mouth had tightened further and further as Harry recited the list. Then he said, "Professor Snape has not come to me with any—comments on your treatment there."

"Oh, he knows about it," Harry reassured him, worried that the Headmaster would think his professor's perceptiveness was slipping.

"He _what_?" McGonagall sounded like a true lioness when she growled.

"Why hasn't he stopped it, Harry?" Dumbledore asked quietly.

Harry shrugged. "He hates me because of who our father is, sir. I did say that," he added, wondering if they thought he'd lied. He didn't want to become suspected of practicing deception, because that would make people think of him as Dark, and because it might lead them to ask what else he was hiding.

"This goes too far, Albus," McGonagall hissed, like a teakettle.

"It does." Dumbledore sighed. "In this case, I am making a transfer for the student's health. School records will show that Harry Potter was Sorted first into Slytherin. Due to irreconcilable differences with the students and the Head of House involved, however, he was moved to Gryffindor for his own safety." He looked at Harry with kind eyes. "I trust that will not be a problem for you, Harry?"

A tiny flame sprang to life inside him. Harry could not remember such pure joy anywhere in his life. Most of what he had was the quiet contentment that came from a job well done, a duty fulfilled.

He nodded. "That will be more than enough for me, sir," he said softly.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Draco hesitated for a long moment, heart beating so hard that he was convinced someone would come down the hall at any moment and hear it. Then he shook his head, reminded himself that people who cast those sorts of spells in Hogwarts were _rare_, not common, and moved forward.

His father had given him a simple task. He had _trusted_ Draco. He'd done so since Draco went to him during Christmas holidays last year and confessed his boredom and his desire to be trusted with something life-changing, something important. And Draco wasn't going to betray his father's trust.

He arrived at the portrait that guarded Gryffindor Tower, and smirked. It _had_ been a good idea to come this late at night, despite the risk of being caught by patrolling Prefects and professors. The fat woman in the picture sat asleep, chin dangling on her chest. She didn't wake as Draco whispered the password he'd heard Neville Longbottom whimper the other night when he stumbled back to the Tower after falling asleep in the library, and thus she didn't see that the one requesting entrance wasn't one of her precious Gryffindors. She just swung outward, and Draco climbed in and looked around carefully. No. No one in the—very garish—common room.

He reached down, eyes on the set of stairs he needed to climb, and carefully cast the Hermes Charm on his trainers. He'd practiced and practiced this. Lucius had assigned Draco his task, but left the mechanics of accomplishing it up to him. That meant that he had to be the one responsible for finding the right spells, and thinking up _every_ problem that could deter him and a way around it. Draco was not sure that he always liked the sheer effort involved, but he had to admit it was much more exciting than the boredom that had plagued him last year.

He rose gently from the ground, the wings on either side of his trainers straining and flapping. This charm wasn't often used because it didn't last long, so Draco shot quickly over the staircase to the first-year girls' room, which would have turned to a ramp and dumped him down it, not to mention blaring with alarm wards, if he'd tried to just walk up it. He landed safely on the top step just as the wings disappeared. Draco sighed, shook his head, and made his way to the door of the room. He was prepared to cast spells to dissipate the wards, but there _were_ no wards here other than the general school ones. Draco snorted in disdain.

He did have to wait a moment for his hand to stop shaking before he could ease the door open.

He easily saw the Weasley girl, of course. The long red hair revealed her through her partially-closed curtains. Draco rolled his eyes and crept to her side.

Yes. There on the table next to her bed was the small black tome his father had described to him. Draco relaxed. The first part of the task his father had asked of him was complete—just to make sure that the girl Weasel still had the book. Lucius hadn't explained the book's importance, and Draco hadn't dared ask.

The second part was more complicated. Draco stood still, eyes half-closed, and recalled all the bad things he'd heard about Weasleys growing up: how poor they were, how they refused to stop having children, how they disgraced their pure blood by associating with Muggles and Muggle-lovers. Draco hissed under his breath, and then carefully cast the compulsion charm on Weasley.

She stirred, and Draco flinched, drawing into himself. But she only rolled over, sighed, and went more firmly back to sleep.

Draco nodded. The compulsion made it impossible for her to part with the book now, even if she felt the inclination to do so. That was all his father had asked of him, and Draco had accomplished it swiftly and silently. Lucius was going to be so proud of him.

And so would the Dark Lord. Though Draco hadn't asked questions, he had eyes and ears that worked. He knew this had something to do with the Heir of Slytherin and the Chamber of Secrets.

He slipped carefully out of the room, made sure to cast a spell that would remove any trace of his magic from the hallway, and then used the Hermes Charm again to reach the bottom of the stairs. From there, it was easy enough to get out of the Gryffindor common room, and he made it back to the dungeons intact.

He went to sleep with a small smile on his lips, imagining all the while the look that would be in Lucius's eyes when Draco's letter reporting success reached him.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Harry had a word, and he put it in the forefront of his thoughts, and the word _stayed_ there.

**_No._**

He lay in his bed in the hospital wing furiously fighting the storm that wanted to descend on him. The storm had probably really started brewing after he and Sylarana had managed to lock Tom Riddle in the box. They'd kept him there for almost six months, but then he had started breaking free, possessing Harry, and using him to let the basilisk free from the Chamber and Petrify people. Neither Harry nor Sylarana had known. Then, finally, when he'd acted against Connor, they'd become aware of him, and fought him. He'd died, and so had the basilisk, with help from Connor and Fawkes, but before he did, he opened and emptied the box. The mental strain of trying to hold the box shut against Tom's power had killed Sylarana.

And now Harry's mind was full of images and pictures that he didn't want to see, and thoughts he didn't want to think. They had words mingled in them like "abuse." A rage so cold that Harry hadn't stopped shivering since the Chamber wanted him to rise up and use his magic like a Dark Lord.

**_No_.**

Harry would not. Never. No. He would not.

He swam among the shards of his splintered mind, and, carefully, he picked them up and put them back together. A golden light and a singing voice sometimes appeared to help him, to show him where the pieces fit best. Across hours, across days, while he lay in the hospital wing and Madam Pomfrey and everyone else assumed he suffered from some sort of persistent magical fever, Harry carefully rebuilt his mind, centering it around his loyalty to his brother.

He did not want anyone to see into his head; he avoided eye contact with both Snape and Dumbledore when they came into the hospital wing. _No_. They couldn't see. They would say that he was evil for ever thinking such thoughts about his parents, who had only tried their best for Connor and for the world. And Harry knew he was Dark, but he did not think he could stand condemnation for it right now. The best possible apology would be to heal himself in silence, and so thoroughly that they never knew he had been wounded.

He healed, and healed, and worked, and worked, and finally it happened. He was whole again. He still loved his parents and Connor as much as he ever had, so Riddle hadn't succeeded in turning him against them. And his shivering subsided, and he sat on the rage.

He built a new box, a sturdier box, and when the end of the term came, he was ready to go home with his parents and his brother. He knew that he would never lose control like that again. He was deeply ashamed that he'd ever thought those things in the first place. He didn't want power; he didn't want the freedom that Tom Riddle's voice had whispered of, because that would mean the end of freedom for other people; he didn't want the rage. He wanted to serve his brother, and live in peace.

The rage stayed in the box. It always would.

SSSSSSSSSSSS

It didn't take much more than a small twist of his wand to cast the spell. And, once it was cast, things took their natural course.

Draco watched with—well, call it indifference—as Connor Potter fell from his broom to the ground below. After a moment's stunned silence, because no one had _ever_ seen the Gryffindor Seeker fall before, the crowd began roaring, shouting, and surging to its feet. The Gryffindors were shouting the loudest, of course, screaming about Slytherin sabotage, even though their team had been playing Hufflepuff.

Draco sat back, twirling his wand between his fingers, and arched a brow. He'd done no more than Confound Potter for a moment, and from that height, no one would be able to tell that was what had happened. And, of course, Potter had hit the ground hard enough to scramble his brains, which was what Lucius had hoped for. The savior would probably not lie in a coma forever—they would manage to pull him out of it—but he could easily have permanent brain damage.

And if he didn't…

Well. Lucius had some plans for that eventuality, too. And he would send his son to fulfill them if necessary. Either way, their precious Potter would emerge from his third year with less than the mental capacity his designated role needed.

Draco rose to his feet. He was thirteen, an accomplished master of Dark Arts already, and promised to the Dark Lord's service when he returned. He could cast a spell that would cause the injury of a classmate and not care that much.

He loved his father with all his heart.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Horror, screaming horror all around Harry, and he knew what would work, he knew what he _must_ do, but love stayed his hand and forced the words out of his mouth.

"Sirius, please, fight him, I know you can do it, I _know_—"

"He cannot hear you," Voldemort's voice said from Sirius's mouth, laughing, cold. "He is buried too deep. He did try to take control of this body, but he moved too quickly, Potter." He turned an almost tender gaze on Connor, curled in the corner. "Grief unmanned him."

Harry didn't listen, wouldn't listen. Voldemort's corrupt justice ritual held him motionless in the center of the Shrieking Shack, but he'd left Harry the ability to speak. He found it amusing. Harry went on pleading with Sirius, asking him to fight, whispering for it, giving him Gryffindor memories, letting him know how much he was loved.

And then the moment came when Sirius's soul shone in Voldemort's eyes, and Harry knew it was the last time.

He exerted all his power, all the magic he'd never used, but chained up and ignored, because to use it was to call himself Dark. It flowed through him like a black tsunami, anxious to be free. He snapped out of the corrupt justice ritual, though he heard Connor scream as he did it, and knew that he'd probably fractured a bond between them. But better the broken bond than a dead brother or a doomed world.

He had his wand in his hand, and Voldemort gaped, and, through his eyes, Sirius nodded his willing permission to die.

"_Avada Kedavra!_" Harry cried.

Riding all his hatred, all his love, the Killing Curse blasted out of his cypress wand and hit Sirius in the chest. He fell dead in an instant, the light in his eyes snuffed out. Harry wasted no time, but turned his wand on the locket that lay against Sirius's chest, bubbling with enough darkness that Harry didn't think it was "dead" yet.

He ended up not using a spell after all. He couldn't think of one potent enough. Instead, he used his magic, a sheer wandless _snap_, and both the locket and the darkness bubbling around it ceased to exist.

And then there was silence.

Harry, panting, fell to his knees for a moment, then crawled towards Connor and undid the bonds that tied him. His brother refused to look at him. Then Harry turned to the Pensieve that sat next to Voldemort's heels, because he _had_ to see.

In silence, he watched Voldemort go into the house at Godric's Hollow with Peter Pettigrew. The Killing Curse touched his forehead, and the second one touched Connor's, and then, at the exact moment when it did, green light rebounded from the infant Harry and flew back to strike Voldemort, locking all three of them into a bent triangle.

And Harry _knew_. His mind, too skilled in book learning, in untangling riddles, darted off, grabbed the necessary strands, and pulled them together to present him with an alternate version of the prophecy in which he was not Connor's guardian, but the one meant to defeat Voldemort.

He waited a long moment, his head bowed, listening to his brother panting in the corner.

Then he upended the Pensieve, and watched as the silvery liquid trickled away into the corners of the Shack.

**_No._**

He set the word of his heart against the vision, and limped over to curl an arm around Connor's shoulders, helping him to his feet. Along the way, he tamed and soothed his magic, making it lie still again. He would not use it, he _would_ not, he _would_ not.

He was not the Boy-Who-Lived, because he refused to be. Prophecies could shift, but Harry intended to see that this one did not. It would stay right where it was supposed to be, and not choose him as its younger instrument.

Besides, it made more sense that it should stay where it was. Who in the world loved Harry for himself, and could have stood at his right shoulder?

Connor didn't look at him as Harry helped him out into the sunlight. Harry knew why. He had killed Sirius, and that would stand between them forever.

Harry did not care. Connor was still alive, and the rage and the magic were locked in the box again. Everything was as it should be. He did not need his brother's love, only his life.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Draco frowned and shifted one foot in the mud. It was under the trailing hem of his robe, so his father couldn't see it moving. That was a very good thing. His father stood masked and cowled not too far from his side, and he would notice in a moment if his son did anything that suggested he was less than happy with the ceremony.

Of course Draco was happy with the ceremony. In recognition of his accomplishments over the years—including making the Boy-Who-Lived an idiot due to brain damage in his third year and insuring that he couldn't ever foil the Dark Lord again, as Potter had managed with the diary—Draco was going to become the youngest Death Eater ever. The Dark Lord had developed a spell that would give him a Dark Mark visible only to those who loyally served him. Thus he could serve his Lord without giving too much away, including revealing a snake and skull in a school full of curious people who would pry where they were not welcome.

He simply hadn't expected to be so bothered by the details of the ceremony.

The Dark Lord had needed the blood of an enemy to complete his resurrection ceremony, but though he would have liked to use the Boy-Who-Lived, Connor Potter was now too tightly guarded to make it practical. In the end, Mulciber, disguised as Moody, had managed to capture McGonagall and bring her to the graveyard where the Dark Lord's father was buried. Now, she writhed and screamed on the altar next to the grave, though a _Silencio_ had muffled her cries so that she would not interrupt the Dark Lord's punishment of his disloyal underlings.

Draco had no mask yet. He could look at her, and she had seen him. Her eyes had narrowed, and then she had spat several insulting things about the Malfoy line, before the Dark Lord put her under the Cruciatus and left her like that.

"Draco."

He dropped instinctively to one knee. His father had trained him well. When someone spoke his name in that tone, the time to ask questions had passed. "My Lord," he said, and knew his voice was the right combination of submission and confidence. For a moment, he felt his father shift, his robe brushing Draco's, and that sent a warm bolt through him.

For his father's approval, he could face anything, including what he thought he would be asked to do in a moment.

"Come here to me."

Draco rose and walked towards his Lord, holding his eyes because the Dark Lord hadn't said not to. That lipless mouth slid into a smile. Draco felt a shudder run up his spine, and told himself sternly that it didn't matter what his Lord looked like. The power around him, like the waves of a sunless sea, was the important thing, and it was power that Draco could shelter beneath for the rest of his life. Already the addiction to it crept into his bones and blood.

"All Death Eaters must pass an initiation before they can truly become my servants," his Lord whispered to him, mockingly, caressingly.

Draco nodded. "I understand, my Lord." He was fourteen, but Lucius had explained as many details as he rightfully could to him.

"Take your wand, Draco, and kill the Gryffindor bitch for me," said the hissing voice, softer than sand.

Draco nodded again, and drew his wand, and faced the altar. The long yew wand descended, lifting the Silencing Charm on McGonagall. Now Draco could hear her screams, the agonized cries of a maddened animal.

He held her eyes, and forced himself to remember every single time she had stood in front of Transfiguration and frowned at him. There was every time she had been unfair to Slytherins, too, and the times she grudgingly admitted that Slytherin had indeed won the Quidditch matches between Gryffindor and Slytherin. If she could not catch them cheating, she did not deserve to know.

Draco thought of all that, and made it _not matter._ Why should it mean anything, who she had been? She was now the sacrifice for his initiation into the Death Eaters, and that was all.

He raised his wand and spoke the Killing Curse without thought, lost in a sea of indifference. She slumped and died of a jet of green light, and Draco turned and bowed calmly to his Lord.

"I notice that you did not make her suffer more first, Draco," his Lord whispered.

"She had madness in her eyes, my Lord," Draco said, with complete honesty. "She would not have noticed any pain curse I used. And I do not think that I can cast Cruciatus as well as you can, nor shall ever be able to do so."

The red eyes gleamed. That answer pleased him very much. Draco felt another warm bolt, and knew he'd found another person he wanted—needed—to impress.

"Very good, Draco," his Lord said. "Kneel."

Draco knelt.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

"Do you understand, Harry?"

Harry nodded fiercely. "Of course I do!"

Dumbledore's face softened. "That makes me gladder than you can know, Harry. I know what sacrifices you have made for our cause, and I am loathe to demand another of you. But, in truth, the situation is intractable, and there is no other way."

"I understand, sir," Harry whispered. And he did. It didn't make him _happy_, in the same way that being suspected of being a Dark wizard because he spoke Parseltongue didn't make him _happy_. But his happiness was not a factor that entered into decisions made by the side of the Light, and that was the way it should be. They had so many more important people to serve, and his effectiveness as a weapon depended on his staying in the shadows.

There were many people in the Order of the Phoenix who had expressed a concern that Harry's killing of Sirius at the end of last year showed Dark tendencies. So they had argued with Dumbledore about keeping Harry free of Azkaban, and in the end, he had proposed a compromise. That compromise was to be executed now.

Harry watched in silence as Connor came into the office. His brother wouldn't speak to or look at him. Harry's heart ached, but he felt a kind of sad pride, too. Connor was true to his ideals and the Light, as he'd been raised, and in the world of the Light, there was no place for what Harry had done. At least he was still pure and innocent. At least Harry had managed to achieve that.

"Connor," Dumbledore said. "We know that you don't think your brother can be trusted with his magic any more, thanks to—last year." He was delicate enough not to mention Sirius's name, at least.

Connor's shoulders hunched—at the mention of his brother, Harry had to note, not the end of the sentence—but he nodded.

"Therefore," said Dumbledore, in an even gentler tone than he'd used with Harry, "we have decided to put Harry under an Unbreakable Vow. He will swear his magic over to you, to be used at your command. He will never again be able to use a Dark spell, if that is what you demand of him. At the same time, you can draw freely on his power, and use it to protect yourself during the Tournament."

Connor looked up, and then turned his eyes to Harry. Harry basked in his brother's gaze, and nodded to show that he'd agreed to this and even welcomed it.

"But—" Connor began, and then fell silent.

"Yes, it does sound barbaric," Dumbledore said. "But it is the only compromise the Order of the Phoenix will accept, and, frankly, it will make Harry feel better about himself, Connor. And since Harry is supposed to be your guardian, according to the prophecy, it makes sense for him to assume this position."

Connor gnawed his lip for a moment, then nodded fiercely. "I'll do it."

They knelt, and Dumbledore drew his wand to be their Bonder. Harry reached out, and held Connor's hand, and met his eyes, and thought, with sudden clarity, _This means the magic can never come out of the box again. I don't have to fight it anymore. I'll be free in my chains._

The relief of that was so great he had to shut his eyes, but he opened them again as Connor incanted the first two vows, repeating what Dumbledore told him: that Harry's magic was Connor's to use as he willed, and that Harry could never use a Dark spell again. Connor looked up at the end, though.

"What's the third vow?" he asked.

"Whatever you choose it to be." Dumbledore smiled at him. "I trust you, and I know that Harry does, too." Harry nodded like a marionette when Connor looked at him, just in case his brother was in any doubt.

"All right." Connor took a deep breath. "From this moment forward, Harry, I want you to swear that you won't speak Parseltongue to anyone, and that if a snake talks to you, you won't answer."

Gratitude came like a starburst from inside Harry's chest. At a stroke, Connor had freed him from his worry about the Darkest gift he carried.

He made the vow, and the fire glowed all around their joined hands. Harry watched it, and thought the separate strands were like the shine of candles of peace.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

"That is not the way, Draco." Hawthorn Parkinson never dared sound _annoyed_ with him, but she could sound weary, and she did so now. Draco bit his lip and tried to stand straight, though his anxiety was making it hard for him to do so. He wanted to hunch over and try to look small the way he had when he attracted his father's disapproval as a child.

He reminded himself that he had Lucius's approval, had had it for several years now, and gave a little nod to Hawthorn. He was fifteen, and the Malfoy heir. Fifteen was the magical age of inheritance among some of the pureblood families even now. Practically an adult, he could not disappoint his father.

"I am ready," he said, as calmly as he could.

"Good." Hawthorn stepped out of his way. They stood in one of the clean, cool underground rooms of the Dark Lord's new fortress, which had apparently once been the site of some Muggle religion. Draco knew little and cared to know less about Muggle religions. He only knew the walls were comfortingly solid stone, reminding him of Hogwarts, and that in front of him, on an altar-like slab resembling the one where he had killed McGonagall, lay the woman he was meant to practice the blood curses on. "Now try the Blood-Burning Curse."

Draco grimaced. That spell was harder than all the others, invented by the madman Evan Rosier. Even Hawthorn, Red Death though she was, had trouble with it. But he had said that he would master the spell, and so he would.

He focused on the woman with long bright hair on the altar—her name was Ignifer Apollonis, and though she was sworn to the Dark, she had refused to serve his Lord—and whispered the incantation.

Ignifer screamed as her blood began to burn along her veins. By now, she had no pride left, and it was easy to make her cry out.

Draco stared. He did not believe at first that he had done it, even when Hawthorn touched his shoulder and nodded in approbation. "Very good, Draco," she murmured, ending the spell. "Now I want you to try it in combination with _Sanguinolente. _I'll heal her before she can die. Do you think you can do that?"

Draco nodded absently, still caught in the middle of his shock. He had felt nothing but the same indifference with which he had killed Professor McGonagall in the graveyard last year. His Lord wanted all his Death Eaters to have a love of torture and killing, but so far it evaded Draco.

But then he thought of the half-smile that would overcome Lucius's mouth when he let himself show pride in his son. He thought of those wintry gray eyes softening enough to show him something of the man behind. Draco's indifference swelled into determination to do better.

He nodded again to Hawthorn and set his feet. He might not care very much about making his enemies suffer, but he cared a great deal about his father's regard. He could _do_ this. He was the Malfoy heir, the sole scion of his father's legacy, and Lucius Malfoy could torture like an artist. Draco must learn how to do so.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

"_Now_, Harry!"

Harry sent his magic flowing to Connor, watching tensely as his brother dashed away among the shelves of prophecies in the Department of Mysteries. Only Connor and Voldemort could touch the prophecy that concerned both of them, and his brother had come here because he wanted to hear the whole thing. He had started distrusting Dumbledore and even Lily in the last year and longed to know whether the words they had given him were true or not.

The problem was that there were three Death Eaters behind them, including Bellatrix Lestrange, and Harry, with his magic occupied in protecting his brother from the ones ahead, couldn't defend himself at all.

A bright purple curse struck over his head and hit the floor near him. Harry dropped and rolled. He could hear flames creeping nearer the prophecies, and abruptly had an idea. No, he couldn't defend himself with magic thanks to the Unbearable Vow, but he could at least make sure that Hermione and Ron, who had come with them to the Department of Mysteries, were safe, and create a distraction.

He reached out and set his shoulder to the shelf next to him. In seconds, it wavered—the shelves weren't that heavy, since they simply held the fragile globes of prophecies, not tomes as in the Hogwarts Library—and then began to fall.

Harry watched, fascinated despite himself, as the prophecies fell with it, their clear sides shining like tears. They smashed on the floor, and the ghosts of the visions inherent in them began to rise from the remains, their lips moving and the voices of the Seers, some shrieking, some mumbling, some clear as trumpets, mingling. Two voices cursed, and Harry knew he'd successfully slowed at least a few of the Death Eaters down.

Then he heard a pained scream.

He whipped around, and saw Bellatrix Lestrange holding Hermione under the Cruciatus, laughing cruelly. Harry knew what the Cruciatus felt like. He'd felt it himself last year in the graveyard, and he'd been lucky that Voldemort succeeded in doing no worse to him before Connor came charging in to rescue him.

He flung out a hand, instinctively trying to stop Hermione's pain.

And he could do nothing, because his magic was with Connor.

Harry couldn't just approach Bellatrix, either, because he couldn't hurt her without the ability to curse, and there was a high chance he would die. He was supposed to sacrifice his life to save Connor, not Hermione.

He hesitated, his training struggling with the instinct to intervene and save a fellow Gryffindor in trouble.

And then Bellatrix spoke the Killing Curse, and Hermione lay as lifeless as Sirius had two years earlier.

Harry closed his eyes.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Draco cursed in shock and barely ducked around the corner in time. The green light of the Killing Curse cut the darkness around him, a silent flash; no words other than the incantation accompanied it. When it faded, Draco stood shaking in the darkness, and realized exactly how close he had come to losing his life.

He'd been assigned, during his sixth year, to run a subtle test of Snape's loyalty, and see how well he truly adhered to the Dark Lord's call. What Draco had found was inconclusive. In the end, he'd decided that he could only be sure by gaining access to Snape's private rooms, and he'd tried to Stun his teacher and look over the evidence at his leisure. If he found something incriminating, he could inform his Lord. If he found nothing, a quick _Obliviate_ would take care of things, or perhaps even an explanation. Draco knew Snape was cautiously fond of him, and he had run similar risks while a young initiate in the Dark Lord's service. He might understand why Draco had done this.

But the Stunning spell had failed, and Snape had given Draco no chance to explain before he began to fight.

Snape was a brilliant duelist. Draco had heard that all his life, but never thought about what it meant. Now he did: his own curses turned with hardly a blink, his wand nearly slapped out of his hand before he could complete the _Avada Kedavra_ incantation, Snape's composure eerily refusing to falter even when Draco wounded him. And he bore a bloody gash on his chest thanks to a near-collision with _Sectumsempra_, one of Snape's own personal invented spells.

He could feel Snape's magic from around the corner, silent and deadly as a hunting beast. Draco shuddered. It was the first time he'd fought a wizard so much stronger than himself, and he wasn't enjoying it.

Then Snape hissed, "Draco."

Frustratingly, his voice came from every direction. Draco shivered. He was not fool enough to answer.

"I know what you were doing, little snakeling," Snape whispered. "Do you not suppose I know that the Dark Lord has doubted my loyalty? Shall I tell you the same story I told him, little snakeling?"

Draco shuffled a bit closer to the corner, wondering if he could fire a spell around it and hit Snape before the man knew he was there.

A loop of rope shot around the corner from the opposite direction and curled about his neck, choking off his breath. Then he flipped around as neatly as if his personal gravity had been reversed, and Draco found himself hanging from the ceiling, trussed hand and foot. His wand clattered away from his grasp and rolled into the darkness.

Snape stepped towards Draco, shaking his head. He didn't look angry, merely disgusted.

"Your task was to spy on me and make sure of my loyalty," he told Draco. "And _my_ task was to answer you back and curb your confidence. You have been growing too reckless, little snakeling, taking risks that will not answer." He paused meaningfully. "Your father as well as the Dark Lord asked me to keep an eye on you. I can only assume that their motivations do not differ."

Draco swallowed and nodded as best he could around the rope. Lucius had told him more than once that if Draco failed to live up to the high standards of the Malfoy family, he deserved no better than death. Draco's mother had sometimes turned away when her husband said things like that, but she had never disagreed.

Snape raised an eyebrow, and the ropes uncoiled and dropped Draco to the ground. Draco didn't cry out as he landed, though the fall bruised him. He sat up and waited, head bowed. He knew what was coming.

"You have learned to make others suffer," Snape said, in a voice barely distinguishable from the hush of blood along Draco's veins. "However, you have learned very little suffering of your own." He raised his wand.

Draco set himself to endure.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

In the silence, during the long hours, Harry fought and fought with himself.

He had thought that, after he gave up control of his magic to Connor with the Unbreakable Vow, he would never be troubled by his Dark rage and Dark thoughts again. But the death of Hermione last year had unleashed something in him. He had gone, screaming, after Bellatrix, and he would have been killed if Connor hadn't come back just then with the prophecy and held her off.

And since then, Harry was conscious of the box in his head for the first time in years.

Something inside the box kept knocking. It wanted out.

Every night, he fought in silence with himself, sitting up on his bed in the Gryffindor sixth-year boys' room, staring out the windows of the Tower. The stars were serene and distant. They did not help him. Harry had asked his parents for help, but James pretended not to know what he was talking about—he had his own ghosts to contend with, Harry knew, his own darkness—and Lily simply patted his shoulder and smiled at him with soft eyes and reminded him that it couldn't be any other way, that they _had_ to be sure he wasn't Dark after he murdered Sirius, or he would have been sent to Azkaban.

Sometimes Harry wanted to shout at them that it had been Voldemort in Sirius's body, and didn't they understand that?

But he knew that was a sign of his sickness. He was hopelessly sick, corrupt down to the bone. It could be the only reason he was thinking thoughts like this now, missing his magic with a longing that left him unable to do anything but shake in bed for days, and actually paying attention to Ginny Weasley in such a way that sometimes it distracted him from Connor.

He had found a solution, though, a mental technique described in a book on Light magic. It would work, he was certain. Connor let him have his magic during the nights, and this was nothing to do with Dark spells or with Parseltongue.

Harry closed his eyes and collected the deviant thoughts and Dark leanings into a small pile. Then he imagined his devotion to Connor and all that was good and right as a brilliant fire, a beam of the sun magnified through glass.

He burned the bad parts of himself. He pared himself down until he was the shining weapon of the Light, the part of himself under Unbreakable Vows to Connor, and nothing else.

He sat there, and did it. He knew he would have to do it night after night, until he could no longer hear the knocking from inside the box, or the frenzied music he sometimes thought he heard blowing among the stars at the end of April and on Midwinter Night.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

"—by the order of the Dark Lord of Britain and Ireland, soon to be Dark Lord of Europe—"

Draco stood stiffly proud at his Lord's side. Only a small honor guard got to be this close to their Lord and the prisoner he was going to torment this morning: the idiot Potter boy, his head hanging off to the side and a slow line of drool sliding down his chin. Everyone else could watch, of course, gathered in the slimy mud that was the churned battlefield around the conquered Hogwarts, but few were this close. Draco's father, his aunt Bellatrix, and Snape made up the rest of the inner circle.

"—for crimes against His exalted person and for interfering with the continuance of His rightful reign—"

Draco stared at Potter. He tried to see some spark of the boy he had once hated in those glazed hazel eyes, and could not. He didn't even feel pity. Dull, crawling indifference consumed him.

"—sentenced, to die."

Bellatrix stepped forward. She would torture Potter, and it would take him hours to stop screaming. It would take him days to actually _die,_ of course. The Dark Lord knew how to make his examples. Draco still thought his ears were ringing from Dumbledore's screams, and from Lily Potter's, though technically Lily wasn't dead yet. There was still enough of her left for people like Crabbe and Goyle to enjoy.

Draco cared little for that. He had learned to inflict suffering and death, to come to the edge of them himself and not to betray his Lord, but he valued them as skills, not as part of life, like Bellatrix did. And he was proud to serve his Lord, but he didn't love his power the way some Death Eaters did; he was content to be near the shadow of those gigantic wings.

His reward was in the glance that Lucius gave him every now and then, the way he acknowledged that Draco was there and a worthy son.

Voldemort was his Lord, Draco thought. But Lucius was his _father_, and he had done all this for him.

For his approval, to have a place in his heart. Lucius knew best.

The first scream rang out. Draco looked boredly back at Potter as a light rain began to fall. He supposed his robes would be coated with mud before the day was out, but, well. The house elves of Hogwarts could make themselves useful to their new masters by cleaning them.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

On Midwinter Night in the same year as Voldemort's defeat, which was his and Connor's last year at Hogwarts, Harry climbed the Astronomy Tower.

He could not keep indoors. He had tried. The school was holding a Yule Ball like the one during fourth year, and Harry wanted to be there, among lights and companionship, watching as his brother whirled across the floor with Parvati Patil, to whom he was engaged to be married this time next year.

But he couldn't, even with his magic safely bound, and so he had slipped away at last and climbed to the place he could be closest to the stars. And to the darkness between the stars, though he tried not to think about that.

He was shivering convulsively, even though the wind that blew didn't feel cold. It felt hot, like the breath of a mighty beast down the back of his neck. No one had seen him go, he knew. No one cared that much. Harry was his brother's shadow, his weapon, of account and notice in the same way that a shining sword at his side was. Everyone admired it, but no one thought it had a brain of its own. Even Ginny had given up when Harry began to ignore her last year.

He could feel the wood of his box rotting.

Harry closed his eyes. But he couldn't cry. He had forsaken tears. There was the wind above him, and the courtyard far below, and the rotting wood inside. He heard the muffled rhythm of his Dark magic's knocking night and day. He might die, if it burst free from his control, given the Unbreakable Vow. But the Vow was a fragile barrier to trust the safety of Hogwarts to. Dark magic could do unpredictable things against Light spells.

And there was the surge of strength Harry had felt when Voldemort died, and the voice in his ear that had whispered, _You are my heir_, even as the prophecy came true. He hadn't told anyone about that, of course. They would think it was Dark, and Harry wanted to prove he was a weapon. That was what he was.

The wild Dark—he could name it in his thoughts, if not aloud—sang above him, and now and then he glanced up and saw a wolf with green eyes and a silver lightning bolt scar watching him. The last time he saw it, it had winked at him.

He wondered, if he leaped from the Tower, would he fall or fly?

Slowly, he climbed up on the battlements. The stone was cold under his feet. The wind lipped at his ears. The stars shook overhead like cymbals.

Inside him, a fist punched through the rotten wood of the box.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Draco opened his eyes, his heart shuddering. He knew it must be sunset, or the visions wouldn't have let him go. He lay on his back on a bed, he knew that much, and the motionless weight beside him was Harry. Given how dark the room was, Draco doubted that he could see him even if he looked.

And then the weight came alive with a strangled cry, and Draco found himself wrapped in a pair of arms so tight he could barely breathe. He slowly gathered Harry to himself, his own heart going fast enough to make his skin shudder over it.

"Oh, Merlin, my life was worthless without you there," Harry babbled to him, voice full of terror and tears. "I can't believe—it wasn't—Draco, Draco, I _need_ you so much."

Draco whispered, "I know. I know. Shhh. I've got you, Harry. I felt the same thing." He held on as tight as he could, and reminded himself over and over that he wasn't the boy who had existed as a pawn under the domination of his father and been utterly indifferent to torture and death. That had been the ritual's version. He was himself, and he was real, and he held Harry in his arms. Harry had helped him defy his father and become his own person, but that was in the past. They were _living_ now, as well as struggling.

"I was dying," Harry breathed. "I was a weapon, and the wild Dark was calling me, and I either committed suicide or went mad and destroyed them all in the middle of my seventh year, I'm not sure which. I didn't have you to help me make friends in Slytherin, or to shelter me at the end of second year, or to teach me what it meant to be human. I just—I had—_fuck_," he ended, on a broken note, and burrowed his head into Draco's chest.

"And I wasn't my own person without you, either," Draco whispered. "I may still not be, but at least I'm more than the Malfoy heir my father would have trained me into." He remembered, then, how glad he had been to be tossed a scrap of approval from his father, and his skin crawled as if it would hump up over his shoulders. He held it down. He felt the temptation to toss Harry aside and retch up the contents of his stomach, but that could wait, too.

"Can't we turn on a light?" Harry whispered back.

"No," Draco said, though he felt the same yearning himself. "Not until midnight."

"Then I'll use my hands to feel you as much as I can," said Harry, and he locked his arms around Draco more tightly than ever. There was a pause, and when he spoke again, he sounded a bit stronger, but Draco knew he was very far from repairing his barriers. "Draco—talk to me. Tell me what your vision was like. _Tell_ me."

Draco wondered if Harry wanted to hear about his vision for its own sake or to hear his voice, and then decided it might be something even simpler than that: the human motive to comfort and be comforted.

"All right," he said. "I was bored during my first year, just like I thought I would be without you there to help make it more fun…"

So he went on, telling his story, interspersed with Harry's indignant or reassuring little comments, waiting for the end of visions, waiting for midnight and the light.


	85. Interlude: Bulstrode to Yaxley

**Interlude: Bulstrode to Yaxley**

_February 7th, 1997_

_Dear Lazuli Yaxley:_

You have no particular reason to look upon my request favorably, I suppose, but it is a fact that we are both allies of Harry vates, and I am confident that no one else will make this request of you.

You have had time, by now, to examine your sister Indigena's house and garden, to learn what treasures she left, and what heirlooms for your family. What I am interested in is not a jewel, or a statue, or a portrait, but a plant. It would be a vine, dark green, with a thin stripe of silver running down the middle of each tendril. It may be growing potted or as a wild plant in the gardens or greenhouses. It trails low along the ground, but may rear up when magically commanded. I suspect, however, that the silver stripe is your best means of identifying it.

I am afraid that I cannot tell you why I need cuttings of this particular vine. Be assured that I will not use them alone; young Neville Longbottom is an expert in Herbology and will help me care for the plants as they should be cared for. And be assured I intend to use them for no malicious purpose.

Sometimes, there are things our vates needs that he does not know he needs, and which he would never ask for. I intend to use the vines to secure him one of those things. I cannot tell him the plan; he would oppose it, out of his own unselfishness. He has changed much of late, but I have reason to believe he would never let me do this.

Please let me know very soon whether you will send clippings of the vine to me or not. Time is of the essence.

I hope your daughter is well.

In the name of the Dark,

_Henrietta Bulstrode._


	86. Caught on the Hop

**Chapter Sixty-Nine: Caught on the Hop**

Connor sighed loudly and put the book aside. He'd been researching the Switching Potion, hoping to find some wrinkle in it that Harry didn't know about and which would convince him to use it again to give Connor the knowledge of the pureblood rituals. Just for a little while. Just for a few hours. There was a gathering tonight—apparently, Harry's enemies and friends alike were interested in setting up an election for Minister as soon as possible, taking away unofficial duties from people who shouldn't be performing them, and making competent people official—and Connor was confident that Harry could survive without the rituals. He didn't think _he_ could.

What he read, however, was the information that Harry had already told him about the Switching Potion. The two people who would consume it had to be linked in two ways, one of which must be a blood bond. It was fatal to take another potion within five minutes of the Switching Potion, to consume more than exactly half the draft, or to take it when the bonds between the two people weren't strong enough. A way to die a horrible screaming death, Connor had managed to surmise, though the books he had looked at were coy about that.

Everything else concerned the brewing process and the way that the two people involved had to concentrate so that the stones filled with their magical essences dropped into the potion. On the bright side, Connor had found nothing that said it was fatal to take the Switching Potion more than once or twice.

On the dark side, that would not convince Harry to switch knowledge with him.

As if he were lurking about in the corridor outside the library waiting for the perfect moment to intrude and make a nuisance of himself, Harry opened the door and leaned in. "Connor, Parvati says that she isn't going to appear with you looking like a ragamuffin," he said. "You need to get bathed and dress. The gathering is only in a few hours." He spoke as if bored, only passing along a message, but his eyes sparked, and Connor knew that he was enjoying this.

"Harry," Connor whinged. He knew he was whinging. He didn't care. This was important. "Lend me your knowledge. It's just for a _little_ while."

Harry folded his arms and raised his eyebrows. Connor couldn't remember his brother being so expressive with his body language before. Of course, a large part of that came from the fact that, before, he'd always tucked his emotions away as soon as he felt them, not letting them influence his body language at all. Connor was grateful for the change, most of the time, but it _did_ mean Harry was much more often pissed off with him.

"What happened to your resolve to study the Light pureblood rituals that you need to know?" Harry asked.

"Harry—"

"What happened to Draco and me being idiots, while you were an intelligent adult who knew how to hold his own?"

"Harry—"

"You have to learn not to depend on potions, Connor," Harry said, chidingly. "Any wizardry worth doing doesn't lean on them exclusively. It takes brains and cleverness, not merely mindless brewing."

"Does Snape know you think that?" Connor said, and then wrapped his arms over his head and moaned. "I'm going to _fall flat on my face. _Apollonis and Smith will both be there, and they'll expect me to know as much as I did the day I visited them. Take pity. Your power and your memory of the rituals I don't take can get you through, but not me."

"No Switching Potion," said Harry, with a sadistic enjoyment that Connor didn't think was very fair, and shut the door behind him.

Connor spent a few moments moaning, then stood up and went reluctantly to bathe and dress. Yes, Smith and Apollonis would probably make him suffer for his lack of studying, but it was nothing compared to what one stare from Parvati would do if he showed up for this gathering with his hair mussed and his fingers stained with ink.

* * *

"Who do you think they'll choose for Minister?" Zacharias asked, as he helped Hermione arrange the necklace around her throat. It was a heavy piece, silver, with a clasp in the middle that Hermione thought ugly; it resembled a knot too much for her taste. It had once borne the Black family crest, but that had worn away through long centuries of polishing and touching. It sufficed for the jewelry that Hermione needed to wear in a time and place like tonight, and Harry had been happy to lend it to her.

"Who do _you_ think they'll choose?" Hermione countered, spelling her hair so that it would lift up and let the pearl-covered white tendrils snake through it. Zacharias looked disgruntled—according to tradition, Hermione should have braided the ribbons in by hand—but Hermione ignored him. It wasn't as though anyone could tell, and this was the much more practical and time-saving way.

"I want to know what you think," Zacharias insisted, folding his arms. The mirror muttered about his reflection, and Hermione silently agreed: he didn't look nearly so handsome when he was pouting.

"You're trying to ride on my knowledge, Zach," Hermione murmured, knowing how much he hated the nickname. "That will never do."

His eyes sparked at her, as angry as Harry's had become in the last little while. "Fine," he said. "It'll be Cupressus Apollonis, of course. He's a Light wizard who reaches out to Dark ones, and he's been the one most involved in the infrastructure of the new Ministry, and he even took care of the traitor Juniper and insured that Harry could catch him in the act of treachery. He's been running the Ministry almost single-handedly from the very day it started. Who _else_ would they choose?"

"Hm," Hermione said.

"Well?" Zacharias came around in front to stare at her. His face softened as he did, and Hermione wondered, the way she had to, whether it was for her or for the vision she presented, part Muggleborn and part pureblood lady. He reached out and let a hand linger on the ribbons in her hair in a way that could have meant either. Hermione suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. The ribbons and the gown and the silver ornaments and the rest of it were trappings to her, encumbrances she donned because they were historical and pleasing to the eyes of the purebloods and let her achieve things she couldn't have otherwise. She refused to admire them for their own sake, when their whole purpose was to make her look like something she wasn't. "What do you think, then?" Zacharias whispered, and his voice had grown softer. "Who will be Minister, in your opinion, my fine, fine lady?"

_Well, they're good for one more thing, _Hermione thought, as she met Zacharias's gaze. _They're good for reducing my boyfriend to a babbling fool._

"I think Griselda Marchbanks could have it if she wanted it," she said calmly, and put out her arm to thread through Zacharias's. "Half of them will try to offer it to Harry, of course. Millicent Bulstrode has the drive and determination to do it, though she won't try now that she's pregnant. And Laura Gloryflower—well, her name is almost constantly mentioned." She paused, wondering if Zacharias would mention the one candidate Hermione considered likeliest, the one person among Harry's allies who'd been getting the most notice in the _Daily Prophet_ lately and seemed well on the way to overcoming any trace of an evil reputation with sheer hard work.

Zacharias was still stuck on her choices, it appeared. "Marchbanks is too old," he said, as if Hermione should have known that. "Harry will refuse. Gloryflower's reasonable. But Bulstrode—" He made a noise like a cat being stepped on. "Hermione, Bulstrode's a _Dark witch._"

"And Harry's undeclared," Hermione shot back, as she guided Zacharias down the steps. The older partner was supposed to lead when they entered the gathering, and since the gathering was in the vast central hall of Silver-Mirror, they didn't have far to walk. "Why should the Dark wizards have to accept a Light candidate, but the Light wizards not accept a Dark one?"

"Because they should know that a Light witch or wizard won't try to hurt them!" Zacharias exclaimed. "We don't know anything like that about someone like—like _Bulstrode._ Besides, Hermione, her father served Voldemort."

"I don't think Dark witches and wizards have any reason to trust the Light more than we trust them, given what people like Dumbledore did with the best of intentions," Hermione pointed out. "So that argument's out. And yes, Millicent's father served Voldemort, and the name will work against her. But she's her own person, and this is a time for heroes, Zacharias. Do something in this period of change, and everyone will remember your name much better than they would in a time of peace, when the British wizarding world pays more attention to private than public affairs."

Zacharias opened his mouth to retort, and then shut it again. Hermione paused when they came to the doors that would open into the hall. "Thinking strained your brain?" she asked. "I suppose I'll have to find a new boyfriend, then."

"Shut up," Zacharias murmured, in that absent way he had when he was thinking. "I could make my name, too, couldn't I, if someone like Millicent _Bulstrode_ could?"

"You mean that you don't already have plans in that direction?" Hermione nudged the door open with her free hand. "Slow, Zacharias, very slow."

* * *

Harry was aware of the drop in volume as he and Draco came through the doors, with Draco leading. Everyone turned to stare at them. Harry flushed—he had even less control over that now that all his emotions were out and playing in the open—but he put his chin up and walked towards the periphery of the room. He and Draco would circulate from there, greeting everyone who needed greeting, and some people who didn't but wanted to talk to them. He and Draco had had quite the argument about that, escalating to book-throwing. Draco didn't want to talk to "plebeians" and "commoners." Harry had reminded him that, thanks to the Grand Unified Theory, the Malfoys were not so separate from those commoners as they had once liked to believe. Draco had then said "Mudblood" and everything was downhill from there.

But he had not let that interfere with making sure that he and Harry were both properly garbed for the ceremony, with robes that announced them the representatives of their respective families, or that they were on time. If Draco was taking a little vicious pleasure in towing him along because he had to enter first, Harry thought, at least it wasn't visible from a distance.

Besides, they had already agreed to put minor fights aside when they were on a political stage, for the sake of a united front.

Laura Gloryflower was the first to come to meet them. Harry eyed her approvingly. She had cut her hair short so that it resembled a soldier's, and her gown was of the style that would let her reach both a knife and her wand in short order. She wanted to remind people that a war was going on outside these walls, still, and if not currently in progress, would certainly explode again on the first day of spring. Even better, a silver winged horse pranced along on the bright cloth above her heart. Sometimes people looking at them looked away from her, which Harry thought meant it was working.

"Harry," she said. "I wanted to let you know that I intend to make a run for Minister."

Harry nodded. He had no idea if she would win, in part because he had no idea who would stand against her.

_None of them can replace Scrimgeour._

He caught his breath around the pang of loss, and realized something abruptly, about what Laura had said and the way she was standing. He tilted his head towards Draco as he responded and added a slight emphasis to his voice. "_We_ will be most interested in seeing how you do, Madam Gloryflower."

Laura twitched. Then she turned to face Draco, whom she had been looking subtly past. "Of course," she said. "I understand that you have passed through an important phase in your joining ritual, Mr. Malfoy, and therefore are much closer to being Harry's true partner. Congratulations."

Nothing about her words was openly insulting, Harry thought, watching her carefully, other than, perhaps, "true partner." And she certainly couldn't have known about the Imbolc ritual just past and how hard it had been on them—perhaps. Draco had told him that this three-year ritual was not popular. But nevertheless, there was concealed anger there, in the way that Laura held her head and aimed her voice. She didn't like being so close to a Dark wizard.

Draco, at least to Harry's eyes, hid any concealed disgust at being near a Light witch much better. He actually reached out and clasped Laura's hand, bringing it to his lips, while never removing his eyes from hers. Laura flinched and seemed to fight against drawing her hand back. Draco kissed it, and then said, "The joining ritual is a convenient marking point, but I have found myself remarkably close to Harry from the day we first met."

That wasn't very subtle, Harry thought, coughing to conceal his amusement. But perhaps it didn't need to be, if Draco had thought that Laura was denying his importance in Harry's life.

Laura slowly drew her hand back to her side; Harry saw her fingers twitching as if she wanted to wipe it off. "Yes," she said. "See that you continue to take care of our _vates_ at least as well as you have done in the past, Mr. Malfoy." A stiff inclination of her head, and she moved away, her robes rustling.

"Are you all right?" Harry murmured to Draco.

"It was an insult, not a stab wound," Draco replied, never taking his eyes from Laura's back.

"Still. She had no right to do that."

Draco glanced at him, and smiled, sudden and unexpected as a beam of winter sunlight striking through the clouds. "She didn't," he said, and this time Harry's hand was the one caught and kissed. "But you had the right to notice, and I would have been hurt if you hadn't. Thank you."

It didn't completely smooth over their argument from before, but it was a gesture in that direction, Harry knew. He nodded to Draco, and felt his spine, which had been half-hunched like a cat's, relax. "Come on," he said, and they moved towards the next cluster of notables, who had Cupressus Apollonis in the middle of them. "Do you think she'll succeed in the run for Minister?"

Draco shook his head with some confidence. "It'll be Apollonis," he said. He paused, then added, "Although."

"Although?" Harry prompted.

"Have you noticed whom the _Prophet_ is paying the most attention to, in the last few weeks?" Draco asked, lowering his voice as they passed a pair of loudly arguing Light witches. "I think it's because Skeeter enjoys debating her, more than anything, but they've also been printing more articles about the price of Wolfsbane, and that editorial sympathetic to werewolves."

Harry blinked once, then said, "Hawthorn's done something wonderful with that werewolf cure, Draco, and she thinks she's almost ready to start trying it on volunteer werewolves who want to be rid of the curse. But she served Voldemort for too long to truly make her reputation back."

"_You_ would think that," said Draco tolerantly. "There speaks the wizard raised by Light parents with the notion that honor is important, Harry. But it need not be true. This is the game. Reputation isn't everything, and family names rise and gain prestige and lose it; that's always been true. Hawthorn's playing. Whether she'll win? I don't know. It will depend on how soon the election is held, and how much momentum she can build up before then. But if she can't convince people to make her Minister this time, I think there's a good chance she can take the next election."

Harry blinked at nothing. He had paid so little attention to something so important happening right under his nose. Of course, one could argue that he'd had enough to do, learning to live with his emotions and adjusting his behavior around Draco, and Hawthorn hadn't tried to talk to him about it, but still—

"I'm glad that you notice," he muttered.

"One of us has to be the smart one." Draco breathed the words now, since they were a few inches from Cupressus. "And the politically aware one, since you still insist on _trusting_ people."

Harry flicked him a glare. "And how are your negotiations with the Americans going?" he asked.

Draco gave him a frustrated glance. Lucius had got into the negotiations somehow, and apparently there was a faction in the American Ministry who thought it a better idea to listen to the father-in-law of the Boy-Who-Lived than his partner, due at least in part to age factors.

Harry raised an eyebrow, then turned to meet Cupressus. He expected another announcement about running for Minister, but instead, Cupressus was looking past him, towards the doors of Silver-Mirror's hall. Harry turned, wondering if the decorations were out of place. He had tried to decorate two walls of the vast and bare stone room with symbols appropriate to a Dark gathering in the middle of winter and two with symbols for a Light one, and the double doors had likewise been split between the two allegiances. If someone had noticed a mistake, though, it would be Cupressus.

"We have trouble," Cupressus said, and Harry realized then that Cupressus was looking at the people coming through the doors, and not bothering to differentiate between magically-created snowflakes and magically-created shooting stars.

Lazuli Yaxley had just arrived. That in itself was not surprising; Harry had expected her at this gathering, now that the Yaxleys were moving to enter politics again. But beside her walked Jacinth, eyes wide and shivers arching through her body—Jacinth without a glamour, so that everyone could clearly see her violently nonhuman features.

And, by the way that the shadows boiled at the pair's feet, Jacinth's father had come along.

"Oh, _shit_," Harry murmured, and began to move discreetly but quickly in their direction. Draco went with him, and made sure the pace was slower than Harry would have liked. Harry restrained his irritation with the reminder that Draco was watching the larger picture, while he had a tendency to get caught up in the details. _All a part of the change_.

Sometimes, of course, he wished his life were not _quite_ so filled with excitement.

* * *

Hawthorn lifted his head, then reminded herself sharply that she wasn't a werewolf any more and so couldn't actually _smell_ danger. She could sense it, though, the tint to the air like winter. She shook her wand into her hand and murmured to the people who had clustered around her, including several part-owners of the _Daily Prophet_, "If you'll excuse me? It seems that Mr. Black has acquired a problem."

Reynard Rumpleworth, the one she'd been speaking with just then, nodded. "Of course, Mrs. Parkinson," he said, and let her pass. Hawthorn could feel his admiring eyes on her as she glided away, and frowned. She _hated_ walking away from politics. The conversations that might go on in her absence, the dances and the threats and the glimpses of emotions in eyes and lips, pulled at her like treacle, and she usually rejoined the game as soon as she could.

When she came into the center of the room and saw the shadows boiling around Lazuli Yaxley's feet, she changed her mind about returning to the conversation any time soon.

She was in the best position to help Harry with this, she reasoned, thoughts flying as swiftly as her feet. She had until recently _been_ a creature feared and hated by other wizards, though not nearly as feared and hated as Jacinth's father. And she had gained enough reputation to help smooth over the ripples from the stone that had just fallen into their calm little pond.

There was the question, of course, if she wanted to sacrifice that reputation because Yaxley was impatient, and she had to admit she didn't. But there was the fact that taking a risk like this might win her much.

Dragonsbane's voice echoed in her head, teasing her one Halloween when Hawthorn had described the hundreds of different ambitions she had, and how she would never live long enough to achieve them all. _Once a Slytherin, always a conniver._

Hawthorn could not help that, though—either the ambition or the soft jolt that traveled through her when she thought of her husband. She was alive, and free of service to a madman, and as long as those two things were true, she would think and plan and dream.

She halted in front of the Yaxley woman and bowed her head. The child gave her one wide, golden-eyed glance, and flicked out a forked tongue to taste the air. Hawthorn nodded to her. Of course, her scent had changed since the last time she had seen Jacinth, and the girl would notice.

Then she faced Lazuli. Harry was already there, in front of her, but the darkness on his face said that whatever question he'd just asked and heard answered had not been _well_ answered. His magic sparked around his shoulders; Hawthorn could see wings if she squinted. Those were usually a sign of dangerous anger in the days since Harry had done what he called falling down the mountain.

_Yes, I am the best one to smooth this over._

"Greetings, Madam Yaxley," she said, and drew those unnerving blue eyes to her own. "I presume that you are here to test the politeness that your daughter and mate receive in a public gathering?"

"The _vates_ has said, and I believe him, that he intends to make a world where half-human wizards and witches are welcome," said Lazuli, folding her arms so that Hawthorn could see the chewed-off chunks of flesh along them. "And so, too, are those magical creatures who choose to grace us with their presence." Her gaze was heavy, as if inviting Hawthorn to compare the cold stares and nervous sidling that went on around them now to the way people had looked at her when they'd known her for a werewolf.

That was the problem, of course, Hawthorn thought clinically. She _did_ remember the reaction she'd received, and how much it bothered her. She still felt thankful each time a full moon rode the sky and she didn't transform. But she'd never had a true pack, only the torn remnants of the one that Fenrir Greyback's victims had formed, and so she'd never felt the impatient daring to walk into public, the way Loki had, and force Harry's hand. Lazuli had followed her impulses, and not thought about the way it might rebound on her—or Harry, to be more precise, since Harry would, of course, be bound to protect her and her daughter.

The little girl, Jacinth, hissed something in Parseltongue to Harry. Harry responded instantly, his eyes becoming soft. Jacinth nodded, then reached up and tugged on her mother's sleeve. Lazuli bent at once, though she never took her eyes from Hawthorn's as she listened to the difficult English words forced around Jacinth's tongue and teeth. Hawthorn listened, but her preternatural hearing had gone, and she couldn't catch more than one word in three. It sounded as though Jacinth were urging her mother to leave, however.

Lazuli straightened with a slight shake of her head. "It seems that the rumors of welcome were greatly exaggerated," she said. "Would you care to make a comment on that, _vates_?" She was looking straight at Harry.

Hawthorn got there before Harry could. Whatever he said now would be used against him, misinterpreted. Yes, she might sacrifice the reputation she'd built up, but it would _still_ be better than Harry doing something to stain his own.

"Harry has always insured that those magical creatures who promised not to hurt others in the exercise of their own free will were welcome," she said. "And he needed warning of their coming. Am I wrong, Madam Yaxley, in thinking that neither a peace agreement nor warning were given beforehand?"

Lazuli's eyes clouded slightly. She would probably take this as an insult to her honor, Hawthorn knew, and that inference would strike her deep. "I did not think them needed," Lazuli responded, "if the world were truly as safe for my child and mate as it should be."

The shadows at her feet churned, and Hawthorn caught a glimpse of a rising chest and a pair of forelegs that ended in claws sharp enough to scoop out a person's insides. For a moment, just a moment, she was a child again, huddling beneath the blankets while her house elf nanny whispered horrid tales of the Viper Wars.

The house elf was long freed, Hawthorn reminded herself, and she was long since an adult. She locked her eyes on Lazuli's face. "Without them, we do not know that you came here in good faith," she said. "You could, perhaps, set your mate on us, and have him feed."

And she _had_ to take the risk, because, if she did not die, this would make her name for numerous traits the Light wizards admired, such as courage and a sense of duty. She locked her eyes on the swirling shadows and took a step forward. "How do I know," she asked, "that those teeth will not tear my flesh?"

She could feel Harry's tension from here. That didn't matter. He was keeping back, letting her handle this. She looked at Lazuli, not the shadows, and ignored even the sensation of them stretching towards her. She tested, instead, the Yaxley woman's nerve. The creatures that had once hunted wizards were beyond Hawthorn's comprehension. A Dark witch who had decided to take a risk was not.

The moment pulled again like treacle, except that the drops that fell from this were made of anticipation. Hawthorn breathed in and out, eyes never leaving Lazuli's wide ones.

And then Lazuli glanced aside, and the moment broke, and the game was over.

Hawthorn had won.

It was time to reconcile, of course, because humiliating the woman wasn't going to do any good. "In one way, I am glad that you did seek to test our boundaries of acceptance," she said, making her voice warm and calm and friendly. "After all, if you had not, we would not have known that this particular species of magical creature could stand in the same room as mortal wizards and witches and not try to destroy them."

The shadows stirred again, but Hawthorn was reasonably confident they would not strike. No one had ever accused the creatures behind the Viper Wars of being mindless. The creature had to realize that, even if it managed to kill Hawthorn and several others, there would be people trying to strike at its—his—mate and daughter. It might be good at killing others, but Hawthorn didn't know how good it would be at protecting Lazuli and Jacinth.

"This is an excellent sign for the future," Hawthorn prattled on, saying what needed to be said, and building up her own reputation in the meantime. "We know that we can share common space with your mate now, Madam Yaxley, as we have learned we can share it with centaurs and werewolves." She gave Lazuli a piercing smile, then turned to the people watching them breathlessly. "I assume that we have gathered here to discuss the Ministry and the candidates for Minister?" she asked, and received several hesitant nods. "Then why aren't we doing it?"

That won her laughter, and the crowd began to break up and move towards the table in the center of the room, where the truly official part of the gathering would be held.

Glancing over her shoulder, Hawthorn saw Harry stepping in to talk to Lazuli and Jacinth, both. He gave the shadows on the floor a respectful glance, but did not seem afraid of them. Hawthorn relaxed, glad that the negotiations over the viper's continued presence in the room would fall to Harry and not her.

A hand caught her arm, and Hawthorn barely stifled the instincts that told her to swing around and use her wand—or her teeth—to take it off at the wrist. Instead, she turned with a patient smile, and Reynard Rumpleworth beamed at her. "That was more than amazing, Madam Parkinson," he said. Hawthorn silently noted the change in title; she had been simply "Mrs. Parkinson" before. "I hope that you will accept my escort to the table?" He offered her his arm.

Hawthorn placed her hand on his arm in the proper position, and let herself be guided. The admiration from dozens of pairs of eyes washed over her like sunlight.

She was not sure whether or not she would announce her candidacy for Minister yet. For one thing, she was not sure that she wanted to run the new Ministry. It would depend on what other decisions they made today.

But the admiration was its own reward, a stepping stone towards many other high positions even if she did not choose the highest. It soothed an itch inside her that, for an ambitious Slytherin, could be scratched no other way.

* * *

Draco was not sure that Harry would be forceful enough. If he wasn't, Draco was prepared to offer the needed threats. Lazuli Yaxley had endangered their political reputations along with lives. She did not deserve anything but a thorough scolding.

Luckily, that was what Harry gave her, and Draco had to admire the way he did it.

"You made me no promises of good faith," Harry told her, utterly ignoring the shadows that danced at his feet. "You did not tell me that you planned to bring Jacinth unglamoured, and that put _her_ in danger, as well as the people around you. What would have happened if someone had cast a spell in his panic before I could intervene? She might well have _died_."

"I knew you would protect us," Lazuli murmured, but her voice was shaken. Draco knew why. The only thing that could truly crack that flawless façade, it seemed, was danger to her daughter.

"You cannot play me against other people who depend on me." Harry folded his arms, and his voice had turned into stone. "You cannot force me to choose between one faction and another, your safety over theirs, when you were the one who would have begun the war and given the provocation. I am disappointed in you, Lazuli." His voice shifted a bit. "Now. Did you come to make a contribution to this discussion about the best way the Ministry should be run, or did you come solely to put me and Jacinth in untenable positions?"

"I did not think of it that way," Lazuli said.

"I know you did not." Draco _did_ approve of that; now that Harry was sure his authority was understood, he could soften his voice and talk to Lazuli as he would to a friend he'd forgiven. His mother had more than once done that with Lucius. Draco took a deep breath, trying to absorb the pride of that memory and forget the sadness, and listened to Harry, because what he said next would be important. "But did you come here for more than that purpose?"

"No, in truth," said Lazuli, and then seemed to recover. "But I would like to know where the Ministry stands on the treatment of half-human wizards and witches as soon as possible." Her hand fell on Jacinth's shoulder. The little girl was rigid with tension, Draco saw, thought she relaxed a bit when her mother stroked her hair.

"Hear it from my mouth," said Harry. "They shall have the same rights as any other wizards and witches. If their changes are such as may cause harm to others, in the way that the werewolf transformation is, they will be required to make modifications to their behavior to protect others. The Ministry will help with those modifications if necessary, as we help with the Wolfsbane Potion."

"You do not know if the others will decide that way," Lazuli said, hooking her chin towards the gathering of politicians.

"I will _make_ them do that."

Draco bit his lip to smother a victorious grin. Yes, _finally_. There was power in the way Harry stood, and in the way he lifted his head so that he was glaring straight back at Lazuli, daring her to challenge or doubt his word. Harry could ask for what he wanted, and he was going to enforce his will. He was doing it in the name of others rather than for himself, but still. Draco considered this a good start for the showing of a more Slytherin side of Harry's politics.

Lazuli studied him in silence, then abruptly nodded and turned for the doors. The shadows accompanied her, though Jacinth lingered long enough to hiss something at Harry. Harry hissed back, a lengthy, gentle exhalation, and followed Draco towards the table when Jacinth nodded and turned away.

"What did you say to her?" Draco asked.

"She asked if I was angry at her for what her mother had done," Harry said. "I said I wasn't, but I did warn her that, though things are changing, she should learn how to do the glamour on her own if something like this happens again."

Draco nodded. "I didn't think that Lazuli Yaxley would take such a foolish risk with her daughter," he murmured.

"She thought there was little to no risk, with her—mate—" Draco could tell Harry didn't like the word, but, just as with everyone else, he didn't seem to think there was a better way to refer to the shadow-creature "—here, and with me. And she's right that I wouldn't have let anyone _hurt_ Jacinth deliberately, or get away with hurting her. But there was a chance, however small." Harry smiled slightly. "She was more in the mood to listen to someone else after Hawthorn talked sense into her, of course. Hawthorn did wonderfully well. Remind me to thank her later."

"Is Hawthorn someone you want as Minister?" Draco murmured, his mind already working rapidly.

"Does she plan to run?" Harry countered.

"Support her, and she could," Draco pointed out. He was growing more and more pleased with the idea the more he examined it. Yes, Hawthorn had begun to build herself a reputation, and the fascination with the first woman to cure herself of lycanthropy would win her more of one. But there was the name and the record of service to Voldemort, however unwilling. Harry's support would negate that, and Draco was confident Hawthorn was loyal to Harry. Having someone like that in the position of Minister of Magic was the next best thing to Harry being Minister himself, which Draco knew he wouldn't consider.

For a moment, he saw the weary woman with the tight mouth and the drawn wand teaching him about blood curses. Then he shook his head, and reminded himself what reality they stood in. The Imbolc ritual was past, and none of the five that remained—Walpurgis, Lammas, Halloween, Imbolc, and the last Walpurgis—were nearly as unpleasant.

"I'll ask her what she wants, first."

Draco suppressed the urge to shake Harry. Him and his support of free will! Hawthorn would make the best choice for Harry's own political ends, and that was what he should be thinking of, instead of all this endless free will for wizarding Britain. Wizarding Britain was made up of stupid people who didn't know what they wanted, or at least didn't know until someone told them. Draco would rather that Harry lead from the front than hang back.

But he reminded himself that Harry wasn't perfect and never would be, and just sighed. "If she says yes?"

"I'll consider it." Harry's voice was troubled. He had meant to keep his voice out of the contest at all costs, Draco knew, and not even say whom he supported or was going to vote for—assuming they emerged from this night with a workable compromise at all.

But at least he was considering it. Draco snorted. _I have that much influence with him. I'll just have to work to show him that I'm right, and that it really is the best solution._

They reached the table, and took the empty seats between Cupressus Apollonis and Miriam Smith. Draco nodded to Hawthorn, who sat a few chairs down, and she nodded back. Murmurs rang back and forth at once, of course. People would see the nods, Draco knew, and draw all the right conclusions—and some wrong ones. They might begin to think the stunt with Lazuli was planned, but even if they did, there was no denying Hawthorn's courage in facing the shadow-beast. Legend said those creatures couldn't be reasoned with, and any plan involving one of them would still have carried an element of risk.

Draco faced Apollonis as he began to speak. He had to admit he didn't like the old Light wizard much. Draco always began his political maneuverings with observation; that was part of what both Lucius and Narcissa had taught him, and it usually afforded him valuable insights. His own adaptation of the process was to look for weaknesses. And Apollonis had far too few. He didn't seem to have dirty secrets, because he was as brutally honest as possible; even his feud with his daughter was public knowledge. He was too upright and too inflexible to be bribed. He didn't allow people close to him who could be turned. In fact, Draco thought that he had only house elves working in his household, not human servants.

_House elves. Could that be a sticking point? If he won't give them up, then he and Harry will have words to exchange with each other sooner rather than later._

For now, Draco hushed his own speculations to pay attention to Apollonis's words.

"We must, of course," the pompous bastard was saying, "decide whether we shall model the new Ministry on the old, or design a new system from the ground up. The latter is the harder choice, but it would prevent corruption from blossoming as it did under the old regime."

_No, it won't, you windbag, _Draco thought. _I'm sure the wizards who founded the Ministry thought the same, but it crept in anyway, and once people got used to the new requirements, it would happen here._

"We need some general decisions made now, though we can save finer details for later," said Harry firmly, and all eyes went at once to him. "First is to determine the candidates for Minister of Magic. Second is to pledge the Ministry's support for magical creatures, half-human wizards, Muggleborns, and others who historically had a hard time with the old Ministry. Third is to make sure that a certain number of jobs for members of that group are secured at the new Ministry."

"Such decisions require some assumptions on the finer details, _vates_," Laura Gloryflower pointed out from the other end of the table. Draco regarded her with disdain. She had shown such subtle condescension towards him that he would have had a hard time pointing it out as prejudice, but it was there nonetheless. Every movement and avoidance of eye contact screamed that she didn't think a Malfoy had a right to sit in their high councils, or that Draco himself didn't have a right to his place at Harry's side.

Of course, one thing was different about this from all the prejudiced Light wizards and witches Draco had dealt with before: this time, Harry had noticed. He fought to keep himself from grinning just then. No one would understand.

"Not all of them," Harry said calmly. "I assume you are referring to such details as the process of choice for Minister, Madam Gloryflower?" He waited until she nodded, then said, "But we have already named the building the Ministry and spoken of the future Minister of Magic. Announcing the candidacy is not the same thing as deciding that we will or will not use the voting owls your family designed centuries ago. Some decisions are made for us. Others we can wait on."

Draco was smug to see that most of the Light wizards—except Cupressus Apollonis—had to pause to consider what he meant by that—while the Dark wizards and witches gathered around the table understood at once.

"You're envisioning a Ministry consistent in the details with the old one, then, Mr. Black?" Elizabeth Nonpareil asked, leaning forward.

Draco hid the roll of his eyes, because he knew some people were watching him. _Well, most of them understood at once._

"Of course not, Mrs. Nonpareil," said Harry, and his voice had gone dry. "Their treatment of magical creatures and Muggleborns was far more than a detail."

"But you said—"

"I think we can use the old names and not imply the old things," said Harry, giving her the kind of personal, flattering smile that Draco knew was best to deal with attention-hounds like her, but which made him feel a bit jealous nonetheless. "That was all I was suggesting, Mrs. Nonpareil."

Harry smelled of roses, Draco noted. The magic around him made the Dark witch a bit giddy, and she leaned back in her chair with a nod and a smile, letting the larger sense of Harry's words fly completely over her head.

Belinda Morningmaid had a snotty voice, and a drawl that sounded to Draco like a poor imitation of his father's. "And the inclusion of magical creatures in the Ministry is non-negotiable, Mr. Black?"

"Non-negotiable," said Harry, and for a moment, his shoulders sparked.

"They may plan sabotage," Morningmaid pressed. "We know that Veritaserum doesn't work on most of them. What if they enter the Ministry and suborn its people and principles to their own ends, instead of working for the good of humans and magical creatures alike?"

Harry turned, quite unexpectedly, to Draco. "Draco," he said.

Draco sat up and nodded to show he was listening, while his heart sped. He thought it was a combination of the surprise and the thrill that Harry was actually talking to him, asking his opinion, in a political discussion with other people, and told himself to calm down if so. Of _course_ Harry would ask his opinion. They were partners, and Draco was often better-informed than Harry himself.

"That spell you invented that lets others enter into Pensieves and experience the mindset of the memories, as well as the memories themselves," Harry said casually. "Would it work on a magical creature?"

Draco allowed himself one blink, and then no more. The answer flowed out of him as naturally as breathing, because it had to. "No reason it should not."

Harry smiled, and faced Morningmaid again, while his hand crept under the table to press Draco's. "There you have the answer, Mrs. Morningmaid. If Veritaserum will not work, we can use the spell Draco invented. It would let anyone who had questions see the purity—or not—of the magical creature's intentions for himself." He paused thoughtfully. "Actually, I rather like the implications of your suggestion. Yes, indeed, we should not let corruption enter the Ministry. I think we'll require a test of _everyone_ who applies for a job here, including both Pensieve memories and Veritaserum where applicable."

Morningmaid made a choking sound. Draco ignored her. He could feel other people giving him admiring sidelong glances. Inventing a spell was no easy affair. Draco decided he would arrange to leak the information that he'd actually developed that spell when he was fifteen. That ought to gain him even more respect.

"The Ministry has a procedure in place for hiring both magical creatures and humans, then," Harry went on, sounding inordinately pleased with himself. "So, now. The candidates for the office of Minister. Who will they be?"

Apollonis, of course, rose to his feet. Draco sat back and looked around the table, barely containing a snort when Gloryflower stood. There had to be Dark candidates—and ones _other_ than Elizabeth Nonpareil, he thought, who'd stood up just then. She could cause a problem with her Galleons, but there was no way she would win a contest like this. Nor did she deserve to.

Then Hawthorn stood.

Draco smiled. He didn't care who saw. Perhaps Harry would have to be seen as remaining neutral in this election, but there was no rule that said his partner had to be.

And then a movement further down the table caught his eye, and he leaned that way just as Lucius flicked a piece of nonexistent dust off his robes and nodded to the incredulous stares.

"I find myself qualified," he said, answering the silent questions, "and surely, if one candidate feels herself equal to the pressure of a tainted name, a Malfoy may feel the same."

Draco restrained a glare. But he did present a smooth, neutral mask to the people who looked to him for his reaction. Let no one think the son supported the father just because they had the same name.

_In fact, _he thought, locking his gaze on his father, _quite the opposite. Let the games begin, then, Lucius, since you don't have the sense to stay out of them._

* * *

Harry opened the door of the Black library, and paused with a lift of his eyebrow. He'd expected to be alone when he came here to do his research on summoning spells, save perhaps for Thomas, but Connor was there, half-asleep over a large book.

"Connor?" he asked.

His brother jumped and turned to face him. His face fell when he saw who it was. "Harry," he moaned. "The gathering was a _disaster._"

Harry felt a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He tried not to let it out. "Really?"

"Both Apollonis and Smith asked me all these _questions_ I couldn't answer, and talked about what I had to know to be a proper Light heir until my ear wanted to fall off, and Smith talked about her cousin's daughter and how advantageous a joining of the Potter and Smith lines could be." Connor made a disgusted sound. "I couldn't even tell her that Parvati and I are dating. I tried, but she just went on talking as if I made no sense. I think she thought I forfeited her respect because I didn't know the rituals she thought I did." He sat up straighter and pouted at Harry. "All of which could have been avoided if you let me have the Switching Potion."

Harry's amusement vanished so fast that it surprised even him, and he let wings snap into being above his shoulders. They weren't quite the spiked monstrosities they'd been the night he flew off the Astronomy Tower, but Connor blinked and fell silent anyway.

"I'm not going to be your scapegoat or your source," Harry growled at him. The lingering memories of the Imbolc ritual made this a particularly sore point with him. He _was _worth more than what he could be to his brother. He had to be. Most of the time, Connor remembered that, but not always. "You should have bloody learned the rituals on your own, Connor. You've had years, and I know you aren't stupid. And you've even had some weeks in between the last time you met Cupressus and Miriam."

Connor flushed. "Not all of us are as smart as you are, Harry."

"But you could have tried, and you didn't want to." Harry shook his head at him. He knew Connor was probably half-asleep, and that accounted for his unusual childishness, but, just once, the reason wasn't enough to become an excuse. "You _should_ try, Connor. Maybe Apollonis and Smith aren't right about everything you need to know—you might not move in their circles, after all—but you'll need to know more than you do now, and the war won't last forever. What will you do after it?"

Connor glared at him. "I don't know yet. Maybe play Quidditch. I don't have to decide everything just yet. Not everyone jumps onto the path of their life at thirteen, Harry."

"No, but you need to think about it," Harry replied insistently.

Connor stuck out his tongue. Knowing the conversation would go nowhere up from there, Harry rolled his eyes and turned to depart.

"It's not always an unmixed blessing, this change of yours to let the emotions out," Connor muttered at his back.

Harry bared his teeth, but managed to restrain himself to a clipped, "Nothing is," and a slam of the library door hard enough to hurt his wrist.

He stood where he was for a moment, trembling, then started up the stairs to Draco. So he and his brother were going to have arguments like this. It was normal, natural, inevitable. If they'd been normal siblings, they would probably have had far more epic battles by this point in their lives.

But it sent a worm of hurt into Harry's gut anyway.

_Not enough to make go back and apologize, though, because I did nothing wrong. I _didn't.


	87. Hogwarts

**Chapter Seventy: Hogwarts**

Harry had dreamed of the sea.

He was certain it was the North Sea off the beach in Northumberland, though he did not know why he thought that when he woke up. After all, he had seen the ocean in darkness, gray waves heaving under rain. He had held up a hand, and the waves rose and danced. He lowered it, and they retreated as if it were ebb tide, hissing and shushing so gently across the sand that Harry had to concentrate to make the sounds out.

When he looked up, glassy black walls surrounded him and the expanse of water. He knew that just beyond the glass, grief waited for him. Patient as a revenant tracking its prey, it hummed to itself. It would not break the walls to get at him, Harry knew. Sooner or later, his resolve to live in the world would drive him forth from this place, and then it could pounce and rend.

He wrapped his arms around himself and shivered, and then _woke_, shivering. He reached up to touch his face, and paused. Wetness lay all around his mouth, as though he had stood in front of the sea and come away stained with the foam. He licked his lips and tasted salt.

"Harry?"

His movement, light as it had been, had awakened Draco. Harry reached up and gently stroked Draco's hair with one hand, while he used the other to feel at his eyes. The wetness could have come from tears, after all, making their way down and clustering around his lips.

Nothing there, though. Harry shivered again.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, when Draco spoke his name a second time. "I had a bad dream, and now that I'm awake, it feels as though the dream was actually _real._" He uttered a laugh that went too high, so he cut it off, and touched his lips again. "Perhaps it was simply my magic imitating what it thought should be there."

"What was the dream about?" Draco pushed himself up on one elbow in their blanket-nest and yawned. His hair hung so wildly over his face that Harry found it hard to make out his eyes.

Harry hesitated, then shook his head. He _wanted_ to share it, and besides, the idea that Draco would make fun of him was silly.

"Not a Voldemort dream," he said. "I was standing by the sea, and I seemed to control it. There was a storm, which made it impossible for me to see where I was, but I think—the beach in the north, the one where Voldemort tried to command the sirens to attack that autumn. The one where the unicorns swam with me?" he clarified, when he saw Draco's brow wrinkle as he struggled to recall that memory.

Draco nodded at once, but his eyes were concerned. "And then what happened?"

"I had the feeling that something immense and sorrowful had happened, but I wouldn't know about it until I chose to turn away from the ocean," Harry breathed. He brushed a hand across his face again and winced. No, the salt was still there, and what felt like an actual flake of brine clung to his cheek. "And then I woke up with foam on my lips, as though the sea were real."

"Well, I'm no expert at dreams," Draco said, and then crowded close, urging Harry onto his back. "It doesn't _sound_ like something Voldemort would send to you, but you can't be sure. Talk to Snape in the morning, and see what he says about it. He's spent enough time over the past few days brooding. I'm sure he needs a challenge." He ducked his head and rubbed his cheek against Harry's. "There _is_ something I'm an expert in, though, and I want to do it now." His hand slid between Harry's legs.

Harry didn't bother asking if he were sure. He needed this too much. He closed his eyes, and let Draco kiss him, and let the taste of that replace the salt, just as Draco's husky murmurs in his ears replaced the sound of the waves rising and falling.

* * *

"There is a purpose to choosing this meeting site, I assume?" Jing-Xi let none of her own surprise show. It would not be productive. She stood calmly in front of the window that conducted the vision of her to the other Lord and Ladies, and let her memories of the British wizarding school happen in a part of her mind that would not require undue reflection on her face.

"Of course there is," said Coatlicue, the serpents of her skirt climbing around her, draping their necks about hers and swaying back and forth with a rapidity that reminded Jing-Xi of plains grass swaying in the wind. The snake reflected her friend's moods, Jing-Xi knew, and the Light Lady of Mexico was nervous. "It will remind us all of the power of Lord Riddle's evil, as well as the lengths he is willing to go to to kill Lord Black. And it will remind us of Kanerva's death, and that more than one Lord-slayer is currently walking the world."

Jing-Xi simply raised an eyebrow, and turned to look at the others the windows gave her access to. Pamela Seaborn gave her a look that said she didn't approve of choosing Hogwarts as the site of their meeting with Harry, either. Alexandre's expression was distant, as always, listening to music that Jing-Xi couldn't hear. She refused to meet Elena's eyes, looking at the shape of her nose instead. The Dark Lady of Peru was missing something essential to make her human, and always had been.

"The meeting site is chosen," Elena said, voice falling oddly silent, as though it should echo and would not. "And the representatives are chosen. These two Light Ladies, as representatives of one side of the allegiance. Alexandre and I, as representatives of the Dark. And yourself, Jing-Xi. You will see your protégé again. You will simply not be allowed to do it alone."

Jing-Xi sighed. She should at least warn them of what Harry's reaction might be when he heard they wanted to meet at a place of Voldemort's victory, and the place where so many innocents had died. "He will not like this. He might feel that we have come there not to make peace or offer acceptable terms, but simply to spite him."

"He would be wrong." Elena folded her arms. Jing-Xi knew those dark eyes had never blinked, though she did not look up to confront them. "Unless you are saying that you agree with him, Jing-Xi?"

It was a difficult dance, this one between the Pact and an emergent power they did not want to accept as one of their own. But Jing-Xi had done it before, when she urged the others to accept Kanerva on her terms rather than trying to restrict her with too many laws she would simply be unable to understand. She had thought the young Dark Lady well worth it, and she thought the same thing about Harry. She was one of the most powerful witches in the world, too, she reminded herself. Just because she usually preferred diplomacy and gentleness, as many Light-sworn did, did not mean she was lesser than they were.

In particular, she was stronger than Elena, and that could matter much, in a private disagreement.

"I am saying this as someone who helped to rescue the children of Hogwarts," said Jing-Xi softly, "who felt a friend die there, who spent much time there at the Pact's behest while I tried to help Harry, and as someone who was summoned away before I could find out if they needed me in the wake of the school's fall. I think this move undiplomatic, Elena, and designed more to put Harry in a place that he does not seem to need than to make the Pact any more secure. Harry has faced enemies all his life who thought he should take a place of respect far below what his power and accomplishments demand. Do you think he will take this well? Tell me."

"Ah, the honesty of the Light."

What would have been sarcasm from Alexandre simply fell flat from Elena. Jing-Xi glanced aside. She knew the meeting would happen anyway—the Pact had already agreed on it, and already agreed on what they would have to tell Harry—but she couldn't help hoping that the rumors filtering out of Britain with the refugees were true, that Harry had changed enough to confound the most powerful wizards and witches in the world.

_He could not battle them, certainly. But they will arrive thinking he will submit, and I hope he will not._

Should she voice such thoughts aloud, of course, someone would accuse her of desiring war. But there was a thick line between war and hoping to see her colleagues learn respect of a boy they disliked mostly because of things he had done to other people, and never directly to them.

_He is in the world. They must live with it, as they lived with Kanerva's emergence and Monika's. Fussing about it is worrying about the grass crushed by the ki-lin's hooves._

* * *

Snape slowly turned Harry's head from side to side, examining his temples and massaging them gently. He had looked into his son's mind with Legilimency, and seen the pools all clustered faithfully around the scar, so that Voldemort could not possibly influence his mind. Now he looked for some sign that Harry had taken a curse which induced grief-dreams. Snape would not put it past the Potter brat to use a spell like that, since he was sulking about being ignored by Harry. And he studied so little that he might think a spell like that a harmless bit of fun.

There was no telltale blue circle, though, no matter how Snape probed, and Harry at last began to wriggle beneath his hands. Snape sat back and looked directly into Harry's eyes. "I fear this may be a dream of the future, Harry," he said calmly, "and nothing more or less important."

Harry frowned. "I thought I didn't have prophetic dreams," he said, "only dreams that leaked through my scar connection with Voldemort."

Snape shrugged. "I do not know that we ever had the opportunity to measure such a thing," he said. "Perhaps you have a gift for prophetic dreaming that the scar connection inspired, or covered before now. Or perhaps some of the dreams you saw as originating with Voldemort came from yourself." That made sense, the more he thought about it. While Voldemort would have wanted to send visions to torment Harry, some of the information Harry had picked up from his dreams—such as the mere fact of Voldemort's existence in the back of Quirrell's head—was not a forewarning Voldemort would have wanted his enemies to get his hands on. Snape usually sneered at Divination, but there were real Seers in the world. There might be dreamers. He suspected years of experimentation would be necessary before they could tell for sure.

"And I dream about Voldemort because he's the most important obstacle in my life," Harry said slowly.

Snape nodded. "Visions are usually less reliable than spoken prophecy," he cautioned, just so Harry wouldn't think he had the gift to predict his enemy's movements now. Yes, it was unlikely, but Harry had taken similarly unlikely risks in the name of the war. "This vision may not mean the sea, but something like it, or an important place in your life, or a foretaste of grief. Water is sometimes associated with such."

"Who took Divination here?" Harry smiled. "Thank you, Father. At least I know it's not from _him_." He paused a moment, then added, "And what about you?"

Snape frowned and lightly touched the Dark Mark on his arm. "It has not hurt since the school came down."

"I meant," said Harry, leaning forward slightly from the chair he sat in, "what are you dreaming?"

Snape leaned back in his own chair, and debated whether he should answer. It was very _easy_ to make vows to change one's life; he had done it many, many times. And then the vows fell to the ground and shattered, or otherwise went unanswered. Only the vows of his Death Eater initiation, the turning to Dumbledore, and the decision to help Harry had become cornerstones of his life. It was easy, therefore, to say or to think that he would try to live after Regulus's death and stop blaming himself, but far from easy to do. Why not let it sink into darkness? It was not as though anyone would ever know it but himself. He could bear it. The other important person involved in it was dead.

"I want to know," Harry insisted.

Snape's eyes narrowed. There was that unusual tone in his son's voice again which came from letting the Occlumency pools go. Harry not only wanted to know because he was genuinely interested, but because he thought he had some right to intrude on Snape's private emotions.

Snape could envision a life where Harry would bully and push and shove him into keeping his vow to live better after Regulus's death and not take so much for granted. The vision was not an attractive one. Snape did not need a minder. He was the father, not the son. He therefore narrowed his eyes, and waited for Harry to recognize that this was an exercise of his free will and he should back off.

Harry folded his arms. "You can't pretend that this doesn't matter to you," he said flatly. "They're bad dreams, aren't they."

"They are _stupid_ dreams," Snape corrected, stung. _As if I were a child, to be undone by a nightmare. _"Dreams of—of what would have happened if Regulus had not died in the garden." There. That much, he could admit to his son. He would not admit the dreams that had smiles in them. Harry could interfere all he liked. Such details would remain behind Snape's teeth.

Harry's posture altered, and now he looked like the _vates_ he had been for so long. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

_Yes. Do not ask me about my dreams again._

But that was an outright violation of his vow, not just an omission in keeping it. Snape clenched his teeth. He hated being trapped in corners like this, and that he knew Harry wanted to help him, rather than help to use him, like Dumbledore, or keep him for a tool, like Voldemort, just made this worse.

"Do not often ask me about them," Snape said at last, and felt his cheeks flush again at Harry's look of understanding. _I am not undone by them. What I say in my sleep does not count. _"When I—wish to discuss them, or when I have great difficulty, I will speak with you. Otherwise, do me the courtesy of not probing."

Harry grinned, and leaned forward to hug him. "That was all I wanted, really," he muttered into Snape's shoulder, while Snape just sat there stiffly, shocked beyond measure. "A promise that you'd speak if you needed to. You tend to keep your problems to yourself far too often, you know."

"So speaks an expert."

Harry winced a bit, but managed to chuckle as he pulled away. "Like father, like son?" he suggested lightly.

Snape restrained himself from shaking his head, because he knew Harry would misinterpret the gesture. It was not that he minded Harry likening Snape and himself; far better that than Harry suddenly seeing an unexpected likeness to James in himself. But he had suddenly tumbled into a world where Harry wasn't fighting this aspect of family between himself and Snape, and it was disconcerting.

"Yes, indeed," Snape said coolly, and then looked hard at Harry. "Though _my_ son would also, ideally, spend a bit more time in brewing potions that did not work solely to benefit his brother."

Harry flushed. "It was just the once," he said, looking at the wall. "I did it to help Connor, but he's proven that he doesn't deserve a second dose, when he just assumed that I would do it for him for the gathering yesterday, and didn't try to learn the Light pureblood rituals on his own."

Snape snorted, glad to be back in the role he understood, as the one who could chastise and guide Harry when he wouldn't accept the same from anyone else. "See that you do not forget your hand," he said. "Brewing skill will serve you every bit as well as politics when the world comes back together."

"Yes, Father," said Harry, with a roll of his eyes that made Snape happy for some inexplicable reason. "In the meantime, I'm going to study summoning spells. If I'm ever to have any hope of bringing Evan Rosier to me, that is the way, since I wouldn't write to him." Harry snorted. "As if his letters are any guarantee of good will in any case."

Snape narrowed his eyes. "If I find that you have gone to meet him on your own, I will—"

Harry held up a hand. "You won't have to do anything. I don't plan on ever facing an enemy alone again. At least Draco will be with me, and you, too, if I can manage it."

"You know that someone else will have to die to destroy the Hufflepuff cup," Snape reminded him, since it seemed Harry had forgotten that. "Have you considered who will do it?"

Harry's eyes were clear and bleak as a stretch of tundra. "Whoever is willing to die when we have the cup," he said quietly. "At this point, I can't predict who that will be. And I know better than to think I can do it," he added, then slipped out of the room before Snape could question him further.

Snape leaned back against the wall and scowled. He did not like to think of his son summoning Evan Rosier in any way, but it was as inevitable as someone needing to die to destroy the Cup. They could not break the Unassailable Curse if they did not have the Horcrux.

At least he had Harry's reassurance that he would not go hunting Rosier alone.

Snape wondered what was more surprising: the fact that Harry had given him that reassurance unprompted, or the fact that he trusted Harry to keep _this_ promise, when he would have been planning to keep a silent watch on him before.

* * *

Harry paused when an owl fluttered through the windows. He'd been on his way to the library to study summoning spells, but the universe seemed in a conspiracy to ever keep him from finding books, he thought. There was Connor last night, and now this envelope, with a heavy official seal that Harry didn't recognize: the sun within the arms of the crescent moon, with the world beneath it.

Of course, he could guess, and when he tore open the envelope and read the bland words inside, his guess had been correct.

_February 19th, 1998_

_Dear Mr. Black:_

_Though you may not realize it, there are still concerns among us about what you intend to do after the war with Lord Riddle and how much you will expose the magical world of Britain to Muggles. Because these are matters that properly affect the international community and not the British Isles alone, we wish to meet with you and discuss this. The meeting will happen on the twenty-first of February, at noon, near the ruins of Hogwarts school. The Pact will send your friend Jing-Xi, the Light Lady of China, as well as two more representatives of each allegiance, to insure that every side of the matter has a voice. They are:_

_Dark Lord Alexandre_

_Dark Lady Elena_

_Light Lady Pamela Seaborn_

_Light Lady Coatlicue_

_If you have objections to this, please let us know at once. The meeting date is, after all, very close and cannot be changed, but we may be able to change the composition of those meeting you, as long as there are two representatives from Light and two representatives from Dark left._

_Yours,_

_The wizards and witches of the Pact._

Harry hissed. He was sure the choice of meeting site had been deliberate, and probably made by someone who didn't like him. His hand clenched on the letter, and he thought about tearing it. But Draco and Snape would want to know what had set him off, and Harry preferred to show them the exact words than a memory.

Besides, he thought, as his mind turned and raced across the letter again, he had better uses for his anger. He would go to the meeting, he decided. It was better than starting a conflict with the Pact. He had enough enemies, and between rebuilding the Ministry and fighting Voldemort and making arrangements for defending every important place he could think of before the vernal equinox, he did not need war on another front.

But their choosing Hogwarts, as well as what Jing-Xi had taught him of etiquette between Lords and Ladies, gave him the opportunity to change things, to control the meeting in ways that they certainly could not have anticipated.

Harry suspected he was giving an evil grin. He didn't care. He would discuss his plans with Draco, Snape, Hawthorn, and others who might like to come with him and witness such a historic moment. Harry didn't _have_ to let the Pact make this into a scolding for him if he didn't want to. He would make it his, instead, and the determination to do just that was scraping through him like an adamantine claw.

He turned away from the library, and made his way towards their bedroom. Summoning spells would and could wait. But the meeting was only two days away now, and he wanted his plans to be _perfect._

* * *

"Are you all right, Connor?" Connor could hear Michael's stuttering steps behind him, as if he were shifting back and forth in the doorway of the library, but didn't know if he should come any closer. "Do you remember that you were supposed to meet me in the kitchen at ten-o'clock for another lesson in respect?"

"Go away, Michael," said Connor flatly, refusing to glance up from the printed page in front of him. _The proper ritual of greeting between Light wizards and witches takes into account age, place of meeting, gender, the dominance of the families involved, magical power, and several other factors that must be studied in detail before one will know the words to use. Each situation is, in point of fact, unique, and this book is intended only to give one an insight into shifting paradigms, not to serve as a guide. _Connor stifled a groan. Was it too much to hope for a book that just _told_ one what to do? Many of the books at Hogwarts certainly seemed to. "I'm not in the mood to talk to you right now."

"Why _not_?" That sounded less like a pout and more like a request for clarity, Connor thought, which was hard to believe. He did lift his head from the book to stare at Michael as the other boy circled around the table.

"Because I have to learn these bloody dances," Connor sniped.

Michael's eyebrows went up, and stayed there. "I could teach you those," he offered. "In return, you could teach me more about respect and admiration, and living in the shadow of someone like Harry." A sneer on the name, but it didn't bother Connor so much this morning. He almost agreed with Michael, in fact. Yes, he knew he should have studied earlier, but that didn't mean he wanted Harry to humiliate him and rub his face in the fact. And Harry was _right_, too, which was the sting of it, and which writhed in Connor's belly long after he'd managed to ignore Harry's words themselves.

"You don't know the dances I have to learn," Connor told him. "They're Light ones, not Dark ones."

Michael blinked, as though he honestly hadn't thought of that. "Oh," he murmured. He sat down on the other side of the table, and looked wistfully at Connor across the book. Connor marveled at how easy it was to ignore the ugly, nearly-hand-shaped burn on his cheek. Once you got used to accepting it as part of his face, it was really no different than Harry's scar was, or Connor's own. "But does that mean you won't teach me?"

Connor studied him for a moment. Here was someone who needed his help, far more than Apollonis and Smith needed him to be a proper Light heir. And he was in the state of mind where he didn't absorb anything the book said anyway, because it kept filtering into his brain and encountering resistance.

He shoved the book aside, ignoring the little squirm of guilt, and said, "I can teach you right now."

Watching Michael's eyes light up with gratitude was _much_ more fun than reading a dusty old book.

* * *

Jing-Xi studied the ruined stones of Hogwarts, currently covered with a light drifting of snow. She would not have imagined the place could still be so sad two months after its fall, but it was. The sensation of lost life lingered around it, and lost magic. It had been one of the oldest buildings she had ever been in. For that alone, wizards around the world should mourn it.

Elena and Alexandre stood on her left, Pamela and Coatlicue on her right. Jing-Xi stifled a sigh. Other than Pamela, who liked Harry, the rest were there to challenge him and put him in his place, make him understand his smallness before the might of the Pact. Coatlicue might be of the Light, but she had a nearly neutral position where Harry was concerned, watching the ripples his actions had on the world and not liking them. She was watching the larger tapestry, not the fine threads.

Jing-Xi could not even blame her. If she had not known Harry personally, it was probably the position she should have taken, the right one. They should never forget that Harry was undeclared. It made him no closer to Light than Dark, when one looked at matters objectively. He might have morals that _seemed_ Light, but that did not mean he would always achieve them through Light methods.

Jing-Xi was personally involved, though. Her heart had always led her astray. She had gone to Britain the moment she heard, through Thomas, that Harry was both willing to meet her and without any other guidance in the ways of Lord-level wizards. It was amazing that he had come as far as he had, since she'd had so little time to instruct him, and since the other Lords he had known were Dark and monsters, every one. Not to mention the abuse, the war itself, the fact that a Dark Lady had attacked him in search of his power…

She sighed aloud this time, and avoided Elena's dead-eyed glance. Her view on Harry was shared by no one else. She must remember that.

Cracks struck the air in front of them like whips, and Jing-Xi looked up in surprise. They were waiting on the right side of the school. Perhaps unreasonably, she had expected Harry to sense their magic and Apparate right in front of them.

Instead, by the sound of it, he had Apparated to the end of the road that led to Hogsmeade.

Beyond the limit of the old wards that restricted Apparition, Jing-Xi realized suddenly. Harry still remembered what Hogwarts had been, and it seemed he would allow that intuition to rule the meeting.

She bowed her head. In one way, it was all she could have hoped for, that sheer political necessity was not ruling Harry at the moment. On the other hand, if he came to the meeting too emotional, he would give the others a hold over him.

Elena and Coatlicue shifted. Jing-Xi had expected that. They were meeting Harry for the first time, assessing his strength and the ripples his power made in the air around them, or in their bones, or in the other ways they might sense it. Pamela and Alexandre didn't move. Jing-Xi shot them a curious glance, and Pamela flushed and avoided her gaze. _So. Perhaps what she constantly hinted at but couldn't tell me about involved visits to Britain in Alexandre's company._

Harry took his time coming up the road, as if he knew that it would be wrong to come too suddenly and seem frightened, or to panic the representatives of the Pact. When he appeared, he moved at a sedate, comfortable pace, letting those who had accompanied him trail around him.

And many more people had come than Jing-Xi expected. She narrowed her eyes. There was Harry's Malfoy, and Severus Snape, and his brother, and perhaps he had wanted to have his own representatives of Light and Dark; that would explain the old golden-haired wizard, for example, and a witch whom Jing-Xi remembered as Hawthorn Parkinson. But the others, marching beneath banners of family symbols, or walking with quills in their hands to indicate their profession as newspaper reporters, or carrying cameras? Harry was shy of attention. Why would he want them here?

To confuse matters even further, Harry was carrying a stone in his hands.

He halted not far from Jing-Xi, and bowed to her first. Jing-Xi thought that could have been coincidence, since she stood in the middle, but she would have wagered Kanerva's gift of wind that it was not. Had she had pointed ears, they would have stood away from her head in curiosity.

Harry straightened and glanced at the other representatives, gaze cold. He didn't even flinch when Elena looked at him, though Jing-Xi saw his expression darken. "Jing-Xi has my permission to be here, having been invited long since," he said, his voice like the snow-dusted bulk of Hogwarts at their side in more ways than one. "What of you others? Why did you not ask permission from the Lord of the British Isles, as you call me, before arriving? I was under the impression that the etiquette of the Pact forbade inviting oneself in, but perhaps a great madness struck all of you at once."

Jing-Xi bit her tongue. She had not counted on this. True, that was a bit of etiquette that she herself had taught to Harry, but most of the time, it wasn't used in situations like this. Confronted with the massed power of four or five Lords and Ladies, even Monika would lower her eyes to the ground and play along for the time being.

Someone had forgotten to tell Harry about other situations like this, though. Jing-Xi clasped her hands in front of her, and settled back to enjoy this.

"Traditionally, one need not request permission," said Coatlicue, "if the Lord in question presents a great enough threat to the world."

Harry gave a little nod. "Then tell me which specific actions of mine have presented such a threat," he said, "so that I might correct them in the future. And if you give me the message, then I will carry it to Lord Riddle the next time I see him, though I cannot pretend he will agree."

A muted chuckle moved through the ranks of those watching. Jing-Xi saw Pamela's mouth tightening. She hated to be made a fool of. Coatlicue simply watched, Alexandre showed no change of expression, and Elena watched the way she always did, looking for prey.

"You must understand," said Coatlicue, "that it is the fear of what you _might_ do, and not what you have done, that has prompted this visit."

"And what do you fear I might do?" Harry spoke calmly enough, but Jing-Xi could see the ire sparking in his green eyes. She doubted he really felt it—or, at least, that it was the only emotion he was capable of letting through. He was far more controlled than she had ever seen him, better at using his feelings instead of letting them use him, or simply experiencing them. "Is it similar to what Lord Riddle will do if he wins, extending his reign beyond the British Isles and into other countries without mercy, slaughtering anyone who does not agree with him?"

Elena moved a step forward. Jing-Xi doubted she truly wanted to answer, but it was a convenient cover for the way she was looking at Draco.

"The Lord Riddle is Dark," Elena whispered, "Declared, a known quantity. You are not."

"That does not change," said Harry, his voice beginning far away and then gathering power like a tsunami, "the fact that I am the only Lord-level wizard currently fighting him, that the Pact sharply restricted the aid of those others who wanted to help, and that you have interfered, not once but multiple times, with my attempts to make sure his reign does _not_ extend. This is only another example of such interference. You come without permission, violating your own rules, because I refuse to Declare. That is the motive behind your actions, all of them. Voldemort panics you, but you keep meddling with me, because you would rather dictate what I do than face the threat he poses." Harry snorted. "And I have this to say to the Lords and Ladies of the Pact: if you refuse to obey your rules, why should I?"

Jing-Xi caught her breath. Harry had just taken the song to a new and dangerous level. She felt the wind whipping her hair move faster, and could hear a new tone in the hisses of the snakes climbing on Coatlicue. Pamela went curiously still. Jing-Xi didn't know the two children of the Dark well enough to read what preparations they might have made for an attack.

"You are speaking of war, _vates_," Coatlicue said, and Jing-Xi knew the title as much as the soft tone was an attempt to soothe Harry. "You do not want to start one over a mere matter of courtesy, do you?"

"If it began, it would be your fault, and for a reason even pettier than courtesy." Harry set down the stone he was carrying at his feet. Jing-Xi could sense his power growing around him, in careful, controlled eddies that made her wince. Not only had Harry grown better since she began instructing him, he was drawing on the support and loyalty of most of the people behind him, the memories inherent in Hogwarts, and the fact that he stood on his native ground. All those factors could influence magic in ways that the Grand Unified Theory was only beginning to understand. They would still win if they had to fight him, of course, because their sheer strength was too much for him, but Jing-Xi was certain that Harry would manage to kill Pamela and Alexandre, the two weakest ones there, if it happened. Harry straightened and regarded them without a trace of the emotion he named next. "Fear."

Elena hissed between her teeth, and edged closer to Draco. Harry turned to face her, and abruptly the air between them turned black with writhing snakes, floating on top of each other in a solid wall, their tails looped around each other, but their necks and fangs free to strike.

"Stay _back_," Harry hissed at her, voice on the edge of Parseltongue. "And leave my partner alone. He is not for the likes of you."

_He has changed more than I imagined he could. _Jing-Xi shivered at the sheer tone of possessiveness in Harry's voice. Then she sighed as she saw the expression on Elena's face. _And he has made another enemy._

"I have nothing to say to you," said Harry. "I have already struck a bargain with the International Confederation of Warlocks to reveal no more of the British magical world to the Muggle one until after Voldemort is defeated, and my allies who disagreed with me have parted ways with me. When the war ends, then I will renegotiate at need. What you came to say to me about international courtesy has been invalidated by your own actions. I will not speak with hypocrites." He twitched his wrist, and the snakes vanished as if they had never been. "Now, if you will excuse me, I will get on with my true reason for coming here."

"What is that?" Jing-Xi asked, because she had to know.

Harry tossed her a glance slightly softer than he'd given the others. "Raising Hogwarts," he said, and touched the stone he'd placed on the ground. "This is the cornerstone."

And then the giant bulk of Hogwarts rose slowly into the air, rotating like a galaxy around a central hub. Jing-Xi could sense the restlessness circling in the magic itself, but Harry never let it get too far away from him. He turned and began speaking to the crowd, voice steady and clear, while what was left of the old school drifted overhead.

"One school has fallen. Another may rise in its place. No, I am neither Godric Gryffindor nor Salazar Slytherin, and may not claim for myself the serenity of Helga Hufflepuff nor the wisdom of Rowena Ravenclaw. But I may cleave to their traditions, and try to honor those fallen innocents who should never have had to perish in a war like this. For a thousand years, Hogwarts offered sanctuary to those in need. May it continue to do so."

And the stones began to dance, arranging themselves around the new cornerstone in what looked like walls much the same, yet subtly different, from the walls of Hogwarts that Jing-Xi remembered.

In one stroke, Harry had changed the purpose of this meeting from a scolding to something that mattered to his land and people.

Jing-Xi had never felt so thorough a dismissal. She reached out and lightly grasped Coatlicue's arm as her friend opened her mouth to comment.

"Look at it like this," she breathed. "He's made fools of us, and Elena threatened his partner, and we forgot the most basic of courtesy, and the Pact is even more unwilling to contribute forces to the fight against Lord Riddle than it is to stop interfering with Harry. He's right. We made a bad decision. We should go now. These people aren't ours. They won't profit from our humiliation."

Coatlicue would have argued, but that near-objectivity Jing-Xi had always envied her for was working now. She uttered one sigh, then made a curt gesture with one hand, beginning the group Apparition that would insure no one could linger behind.

Jing-Xi did hear Alexandre murmur, "Ridiculous, to interfere in the life of one so guarded by prophecy."

She turned to look at him just before they vanished. He met her gaze, serene and insufferable as always, and for a moment Jing-Xi thought she heard the sweet singing of multiple active prophecies.

She caught one more glimpse of Harry just before they went, and that hardened her resolve to fight for him. He faced his people, and spoke what they needed to hear, and used his enormous magic to benefit and guard them.

_He's doing just what he should be. The Pact is going to have to wake up from its stubborn fear of him and see that. I'll spend the rest of my days arguing if I must. Stubborn set of old men and women._


	88. On Unneutral Ground

**Chapter Seventy-One: On Unneutral Ground**

Owen laid down the parchment in front of Apollonis with an air of finality that he didn't feel. But showing such nervousness to the old Light wizard was grounds for his proposal to be rejected yet again. He stood with his hands folded firmly in front of him and met Cupressus gaze for gaze.

"Ah." Apollonis picked up the parchment and turned it over, as if he were reading every word on the underside. He probably was, Owen thought. No single concession that he'd tried to sneak past the acting Minister had worked, so in the end he'd listed everything clearly and straightforwardly. Apollonis leaned back and looked up at Owen now. "And you think that we will let Dark families have equal power in the Ministry with the Light families who have always served others?"

Owen drew an angry breath to respond that, if they didn't, Harry would know why, and then shut his mouth with a shake of his head. Burst out with something like _that_, and Apollonis would have an excuse to dismiss him and request some other representative for the Dark families from Harry. It wasn't so much that Owen would regret being back at his Lord's side, but Harry had asked him to do this. He wanted to succeed.

Besides, the work was interesting in and of itself, and at least Owen felt he was making some difference here, instead of sitting about in Silver-Mirror and watching as everyone else did more useful work.

"I would hope that you would, sir, yes," he said, evenly, his eyes never wavering from Apollonis's. "Since the new Ministry is committed to including those who did not have equal power in the old one, I would _hope_ that a committed offer to the principles of that equality would serve." He made a little gesture at the parchment, and then sat down in the chair across from Apollonis, though he hadn't been invited to sit since the moment he entered the room.

Apollonis's eyes flashed. Owen wasn't sure what it meant, but he didn't intend to rise until he was _chased_ out. His hands tightened on the arms of the chair, and he waited.

And, a moment later, Apollonis relaxed, even looked half-amused, as if he thought Owen's ready-to-attack posture a bluff or a feint, and turned back to the parchment. Owen kept a scowl from his face with effort. _He was testing me. Bloody bastard. Probably wanted to see if I could stand up to him. Well, Ignifer did say that he used to do that to her._

Ignifer had said a great many other things about her father, none of them complimentary, so Owen expected the objection when Apollonis leaned across the desk and tapped one item on the parchment with his forefinger.

"This mandates that Dark families may enchant some offices so that the people working there will have an obligation to be loyal to them," Apollonis murmured. "It would rely on the office, and not the person."

Many such offices had existed in the old Ministry; Owen knew that Harry had even used one to his advantage once, when he called on Aurelius Flint and asked him to fulfill his office's debt to the Black line. He didn't have any proof that they existed yet in the Ministry, for either Light or Dark, but he had passed some rooms with spells and wards on them that he didn't recognize. So he held Apollonis's gaze and bluffed.

"If that is a power that you do not intend to allow us, I withdraw the point at once." He paused until that yellow gaze grew suspicious. "So long as the Light families who have already claimed superior advantages in our Ministry withdraw their own spells, of course, and swear to stick more closely to the rules. This is, in any case, a weaker group approaching a well-established group, not a group of upstarts requesting a privilege that the other doesn't have."

Those eyes narrowed. Owen waited, never blinking. If the offices he had intuited didn't exist, or the spells on them were meant to serve a different purpose—well, then he had just made a blunder, and he would wish he had apologized before all was through. But sometimes, one had to take a risk.

Apollonis sat back with a loud curse. "We _did_ hope that no one had noticed," he said, with remarkable candor. But then, he was a Light wizard.

Owen made sure to pace his breath as it traveled out of his lungs, so that Apollonis wouldn't hear it as a nervous gasp, and nodded. "We have no objections to benefits," he said, and then paused to smile like a shark. "So long as they are shared with us, of course."

This time, the old wizard laughed openly, and then sat back to discuss the rest of the list with him. That did not mean the end of tricks, of course. Owen would have been slightly worried if it had.

* * *

Draco was the center of all eyes as he set the Pensieve on the table in front of him. He didn't mind that. In fact, he had to work hard to keep from visibly preening. That would say he relished all the attention being paid to him. Instead, he had to act as if this were normal and everyday.

"Now," he said, indicating the Pensieve. "This holds memories of mine where the mindset is perfectly clear. I brought it here to show you that the spell _does_ work."

"But couldn't you just teach us the spell?" demanded a mousy little man whom Draco thought was probably a Nonpareil agent.

Draco gave him a sweet smile. "And not have demonstrated to you that it works, good sir? Then _I_ would be at fault, for practically handing over a dangerous incantation that could have unpredictable results."

The man scowled and folded his arms over his chest. Draco wondered what position in the new Ministry he was hoping for.

They were gathered in one of the "Light" rooms on the fourth floor. At least, Draco thought of it that way, since the window giving onto the sun was especially large, and someone had already cast the Sourceless Torch spell that was going to light the new Ministry, filling the corners with soft white radiance instead of soft shadows. The only furniture was the pale wood desk on which Draco had placed the Pensieve, and clustered in front of him was everyone from Ministry officials to those hoping for jobs there to the merely curious. Luckily, given Harry's announcement of Draco's prowess in Silver-Mirror the other night, the "merely curious" crowd was large, and Draco could feel eyes in there focused on him.

He didn't know the tenor of all the gazes. Some of them would be envious, he knew, and some admiring. He didn't much care which was which, right now. He was in a large enough crowd that they couldn't threaten him, and so he had nothing to do but bask in the attention he rightfully deserved.

He drew his wand now, and a few people stepped back. Draco only tapped the side of the Pensieve, however, and made the metal softly ring, in order to quell the faint conversations in the back of the room. "The spell is already cast," he reassured them again. "Come."

Those nearest edged forward and pushed their heads in beside his. Draco knew the others would be waiting impatiently for a report and the chance to try on their own, but he didn't care. Rather than bring one large Pensieve to absorb them all, he preferred the smaller one that would imply multiple turns. That would cause the admiration and awe from the first set of gazers to ripple back into the rest of them, as those aroused from their trance gave extravagant descriptions, and made the rest all the more eager to see the truth for themselves.

Draco had chosen the memory carefully. Why wouldn't he? This was a political tool, and, as such, it should have multiple valences. Others might think of it merely as a chance for Draco to prove that he could do what Harry said he could. But he was going to take the opportunity to make himself look good, of course.

The memory was of the battle in Woodhouse, and Draco winced a bit as he watched Fenrir Greyback spring out of the tall grass beside Woodhouse itself, snatch his broom in his teeth, and send Draco spinning to the ground. Not his finest moment, of course, and the audience could feel his panic and his fear. But, in another moment, they would also be able to admire his swift reflexes and his protective instincts.

And then there was the third purpose to this memory, of course.

That purpose came when Harry descended like fire and thunder and willed Fenrir Greyback out of existence. Draco could feel the fear and shock of the others with him billowing around him like a cold wind. His own superiority, meanwhile, grew across his mind like a cloud of smoke. They knew about Harry's power already; it would be impossible to surprise them with that. What they _didn't_ know, or might not have known before now, was the extent to which Harry would go to protect Draco. And now they knew, and that might prevent stupid things like attacks on Draco that he had no time for.

Harry landed beside Draco on the ground, and then Whitecheek, Greyback's mate, came for his back like a flying shadow.

Draco felt his own fear and determination meld into a single surge, which served to lift his arm straight out from his body and tear the Killing Curse from his wand. And Whitecheek died, a full-grown werewolf fallen to a boy just fifteen years old. Once again, awe swept through the people around him, and this time, there was fear, centered on him. Draco reveled in it.

He would, of course, welcome the impression that he had Harry's power at his back, and therefore people should do what he told them to do, whether or not it was true. But he welcomed even more the idea that he was formidable in his own right. The stupid, the careless, the lazy, and the inappropriate should stay out of his way, and then he wouldn't have to resort to violence like the Killing Curse.

The memory ended there. Draco shook his head and rose out of the silver liquid, to find himself standing beside the Pensieve with fascinated eyes riveted to him. _Merlin_, that was a good feeling, as if he stood in the middle of a sliding mass of honey. If he hadn't known the explanation that came from Harry's training, Draco would have wondered how in the _world_ Harry could dislike the sensation.

"You used an Unforgivable," one of his watchers whispered, a woman with straggly white hair and, currently, a death grip on the edge of the table, as if the very sight of the Killing Curse were enough to make her fall over.

"Tell me," Draco said calmly, examining his nails, "what better use do you think it could have, then to kill a werewolf and one of Voldemort's minions who was pursuing the death of our only hope against Voldemort?" All of them flinched when he said the Dark Lord's name. This was _hilarious_. Draco was grateful for the iron control of his face that kept him from laughing. "And who will punish me? The old Ministry, by whose laws this was a crime? Or the new Ministry, which hasn't gathered itself enough yet to declare the Unforgivables a crime?"

"You should be in Tullianum," the old woman persisted.

Draco met her gaze and shrugged his shoulders. "A little difficult, seeing that Tullianum lies in ruins, and has for months," he said. "If Harry had wanted to arrest me or give me to the Ministry at the time it happened, he could have. That he chose not to…" He let the words dangle, and then waved the people still crowded in front of the table to move back, because the ones behind them were shoving at them, desperate to get near the Pensieve and see the memory for themselves.

It had been a risk, of course. There were people revolted at the very mention of the Killing Curse, people who forgot that the Aurors had been granted permission in the First War to use it for a time, people who forgot that they would probably use it themselves against enemies too powerful to defeat—people who forgot that, in their fifth year, Harry had fought with a ragtag band of allies, not the powerful political force it had become since.

Draco might inspire some disgust.

But, from the looks in some eyes, he'd inspired more fear, and that he could more than live with. Fear was the beginning of respect in many people. Draco wasn't blind to the way that people flinched when Harry walked into a room, even though Harry was. They respected power, yes, and by this time, they also respected that Harry would live up to his principles, but they also cowered from what that magic could do.

Draco wanted to make his own reputation. Fear would be one of the necessary components.

Looking around the room, he caught his father's gaze. Draco inclined his head, and let his eyes ask, as clearly as he could without actually speaking the words, whether Lucius was here to gather support for his run for the Minister's office. Lucius turned and stalked away.

When his cloak passed, Michael Rosier-Henlin stood where he had been, staring at Draco with obvious longing.

Out of pity for an old partisan, Draco turned in profile, where he knew he looked best, and then plunged his head into the Pensieve. Michael's gaze went with him like treacle, clinging where it wasn't welcome.

His admiration _was_, of course. Just not the manner in which he had chosen to express it, and that unforgivable presumption that Draco would ever leave Harry for him, a nearly talentless, far too impetuous wizard who wouldn't even be alive now if it weren't for Harry's freeing Durmstrang, and who had first borne the lightning bolt scar on his arm and then lost the right to do so.

* * *

"Harry!"

Harry jolted out of a sound sleep over the book of summoning spells, and then relaxed a bit. It was Thomas, clutching a book, and sometimes he had a habit of waking people like that for nothing more urgent than to share the latest bit of new information he'd found. Thomas's children were visiting Silver-Mirror, and since he now had his daughter Rose to share his fascinations with, his waking Harry up had grown a bit less frequent of late.

But the expression on his face was indignant, and Harry found himself standing. "What is it, Thomas?"

"The centaurs," said Thomas, folding his arms. "They went to the Ministry, and now there are some people forbidding them entrance, claiming they're animals and halfbreeds and they can't come in."

Harry hissed between his teeth. He could imagine that all too clearly, even given that Apollonis and most of those who had attained "unofficial" power in the new Ministry would invite the centaurs in. "How many of them?" he asked, as he unwound his arms from the chair's and stood up. "And how did you learn of this?"

"I was in the Ministry, trying to catalogue their library." Thomas tightened his arms defensively around the book he carried. "I left as the centaurs arrived. _Hemlock_ was leading them, and they couldn't get in!"

Harry nodded. Hemlock was one of Thomas's contacts on centaur magic and the way it related to the Grand Unified Theory, which promptly meant, of course, one of Thomas's best friends in the whole world. "I'll come, Thomas."

Thomas beamed, caught his arm, and hustled him towards the entrance to the library, where he could come outside the wards and Apparate to the Ministry more easily.

Harry did lift a hand and conjure a sending of himself for Snape, with his mouth full of the message that he was going to the Ministry in Thomas Rhangnara's company, to solve a diplomatic incident. He wondered, though, as Thomas dragged him down the stairs and outside by main force of strength, whether he should really solve this one the way he had all the others.

His magic couldn't be the sole governing force in the new Ministry, especially since he didn't intend to take on the post of Minister, and still considered his _vates_ path and the defeat of Voldemort his primary responsibilities. And people couldn't cooperate forever, sullenly, in the shadow of his power. They had to learn to do this on their own, live with people of other species, or what good was anything they'd done? It wouldn't make new ideas blossom and grow among those wizards and witches whom Harry wanted to see change. It would follow the same pattern it always had: the powerful, dominating wizard, who got his way because other people were afraid of his magic.

So Harry decided that he could try something—especially now, since when they arrived at the Ministry, he could see that both the group of centaurs at the doors and the group of humans staring at them were small. And Thomas had arranged it so that he would be nearby if anything happened. He reached up and touched Thomas's sleeve before the man could drag him near enough to be seen.

"I want you to help them," he whispered.

Thomas turned and stared at them, then shook his head. "But, Harry, they won't _listen_ to me," he said, indicating the group of wizards and witches who blocked the centaurs' entrance into the Ministry. "They're _stupid._"

Harry smiled. It was often hard to stop doing that around Thomas. Currently, he wondered how hard it was for Thomas to live in a world where most people seemed to ignore his brilliance and the very simple things that he believed in and which anyone, he thought, could see if they just studied enough.

"I'll be right here, ready to help if you need me," he said. "But hiding. I don't think it's true freedom if people change their minds because I ask them to, Thomas. Do you? They should change their minds on their own. Or because someone brilliant, but not a Lord-level wizard, persuades them to do so."

Thomas looked as if Harry had just given him a new library. He glanced towards the centaurs for a moment, opened his mouth, then shut it and gave a firm nod. He strode into the confrontation with a mutter that sounded to Harry like, "It's _Hemlock._ He's smart, and they're not. I have to help him."

Harry used his magic to wrap the _Extabesco plene_ around himself and hide him from not just human sight but the keener senses of the centaurs. He watched eyes and faces and hands and hooves, looking for some sign of growing hostility, but determined not to intervene unless he had no other choice to prevent people from being injured.

_They have to learn to live without me. And if there's anyone who can scold people into living a better life, it's Thomas._

* * *

Thomas wished it were a permissible punishment to drub people over the head with a book until they paid attention. Or, even better, the book could be one of common sense and morality, and each hit could impart the knowledge that the book contained.

Thomas was tempted to disappear into daydreams of how he would enchant such a book, but the angry faces before him reminded him of his course. He walked right in between a shouting witch and Hemlock, and stood there, glaring at her. _She is stupid to yell at centaurs. They are not impressed by raised voices except to view them as signs of just how impatient and unworthy of sharing space with them humans are._

Of course, no one in front of him knew that, because they were all stupid.

"Why are you stupid?" he asked the witch, who had shut her mouth and stared at him as if she didn't know what else to do.

She flushed at once, and lifted her wand as if she would smack him across the palm with it. Thomas's mother used to do that, but obviously someone hadn't done it enough to this witch with a child, because otherwise she wouldn't have been stupid. Thomas slapped the wand away with his book, careful of the cover. This was a rare old volume of Fishbaggin's goblin histories. He wouldn't want to get sweat stains on it, or the drabs of a spell, either.

"You know that centaurs are welcome here," he said. "The Ministry said so. _Vates_ Harry Black said so. And you are standing here, denying entrance to fellow citizens, and being stupid. Why are you stupid?"

"They shouldn't be welcome," fumed the witch. "I'll have you know that centaurs raped my sister."

"Where?" Thomas demanded. He hadn't heard of a centaur rape happening on British soil in centuries, since the herd in the Forbidden Forest had been so thoroughly bound. Centaurs from other countries, visiting the Forest or brought in by foreign wizards, had sometimes raped people, but that was rare.

"In Greece!"

Thomas turned around and indicated Hemlock and the others behind him. Hemlock had his arms folded and his tail twitching, which was a sure sign that he didn't like the behavior of the people facing him. Thomas was sorry, but he didn't think that stopping to apologize now would make the wizards and witches in front of him realize how stupid they were being. "And do these centaurs look as if they've been in Greece to you?" he asked.

"They _could_ have been." The witch folded her arms in turn. "One centaur looks like all the others to me. All I know is that I'm not having them in the Ministry, _creatures_ who could do that."

"Humans rape, too!" Thomas could not believe the sheer insanity of the universe sometimes. People acted as if he and the other research wizards had concocted the Grand Unified Theory of Every Kind of Magic as an affront to their personal honor, and now this. "Would you want to shut all humans out of the Ministry because some of them rape sometimes? Or because Voldemort tortures people, and so that must mean that other humans torture people?"

"That's different," the witch countered. "Humans are different from each other. Just because one person does that doesn't mean we'll all do that." Thomas scowled. He hated it when people thought "human" and "person" were equivalents to one another. "But centaurs are all the same."

"How do _you_ know?" Thomas asked.

"Excuse me?"

"How do you know that?" Thomas repeated. "Have you read the histories of centaur migration, and the different ways they interpret the stars? Have you ever heard of the way that centaurs negotiated with the Ministries, and the different ways they resolved their problems with wizards in each country? Have you heard of Sagittarius and the legacy he left and how difficult that was to resolve? Do you have the least idea of what the centaurs struggle with? Have you even _heard_ of Orion the Black? Of course not," he went on, while the woman simply stared at him. "You just think that centaurs are rapists, and that's all you know about them. If you'd paid close enough attention to the news to see something beyond the end of your nose, you would have realized that this centaur herd asked the _vates_ for help years ago. He freed them from their web, but, at the same time, made them unwilling to rape. One of their own _died_ for that, made a willing sacrifice so they could fit into the world better and have their freedom. Until someone human is willing to die like that, and until we've endured slavery to compare to theirs, I don't think you have a right to deny them the Ministry!"

He was shouting by the end, but he didn't care. Willing ignorance _maddened_ him. It was one thing when he knew people were intelligent and hadn't heard of his theories—then he could just explain them—but another altogether when there were things happening around them they should have known before they started talking ignorantly, and they just went ahead and talked ignorantly anyway.

_They are so stupid, _he thought, as he watched the witch in front of him go through several shades of pale. _And they don't have to be. Why don't people want to educate themselves? Why? Why don't they care more about people around them, and want to know about them, instead of only knowing about themselves? Why?_

Hemlock touched his shoulder with one light hand. Thomas turned and looked up at him. It could be hard to read centaur faces, at least for a wizard who didn't want to learn, but he could make out a spark deep in the blue eyes looking back at him.

_I spoke well for them. I didn't disgrace them, or say something they wouldn't have endorsed. _Thomas beamed back at them. It was always best to let people speak for themselves, of course, but the wizards and witches would only have listened to another wizard just then. Now came the moment when Thomas had bought them silence, and Hemlock could actually talk without shouting. Centaurs hated shouting, and had never seen the purpose.

Thomas stepped aside.

Hemlock nodded to the witch who still watched them as though trying to respond to that torrent of information. "It is quite true," he said. "We cannot rape, thanks to the efforts of the _vates_. It is for that effort that we promised him aid in war, and indicated interest in joining in human politics." He paused for a moment, while his hoof scraped the ground in front of him. "I am sorry for your sister, but we are not the ones who raped her. And we do not let prejudice against humans rule us. Will you let prejudice against centaurs rule you?"

Thomas could see the way this worked. The witch in front of Hemlock kept sneaking little side-glances at Thomas as she answered. It was really still his voice that she was responding to, a human voice instead of the centaur one that actually spoke, and that was bad, not ideal. Thomas scowled.

Then he brightened. Not everyone would catch that nuance. Some people would think she was talking to Hemlock as an equal, and given that impression, some people would treat the centaurs more like equals because they had seen other people do so. So the truth could spread through a deception, or a mistaken impression.

Thomas's favorite tactic was using willing ignorance against itself. If the people watching thought that this witch could learn to grant intelligence to centaurs, then they could learn. They might even feel _shamed_ into learning, which was all right with Thomas. They should have learned already. Stupid people.

"I—I accept your sympathy," she said. "I don't like and I don't trust you, but it may work. For now," she added, grudgingly, and stepped out of the way. "I'll accompany you to the Acting Minister's office, you know. Just in case."

Hemlock nodded, and the other three centaurs behind him cantered into the Ministry. The wizards and witches closed in around them, and Thomas decided that he should go with them, just in case they had any unfortunate ideas before they reached Cupressus Apollonis.

Besides, he needed to observe more willing ignorance in its own habitat, so that he could come up with plans for that book that would deliver a drubbing and knowledge at the same time.

* * *

Harry let himself melt back into view. His face hurt from his hard grin.

Merlin, _that_ was the way to do it, to give people a chance to yell and figure it out _themselves._ This was what he had once hoped the monitoring board could do: provide a base of coherent opposition to him.

There _had_ to be opposition to him, or there was no _vates_ path. There was only frightened silence, with no one daring to speak up because they thought his power would conquer them. Silence didn't mean agreement, it just meant stifled disagreement, and Harry had never wanted that. People should be free to yell in his face, to say stupid things, to make requests of him that he was never going to honor. It might infuriate him, and it might sometimes endanger others enough to require his intervention, but at least it would mean he was not a Lord and the British wizarding world was still free of a single dominating presence.

And to see people solving problems _themselves…_

It made his face hurt.

He Apparated home, humming under his breath, and arrived at the same moment as Draco, who had been showing off the Pensieve with his mindset-spell in it to the Ministry. Harry caught him and swung him around in Silver-Mirror's entrance hall, enchanting the walls to sing the same music they'd played at the Ministry on its official opening night. He reenacted the dance they'd done there with a very startled and confused Draco, who looked as if he didn't know whether to laugh or slow Harry down and demand an explanation.

"What happened?" he said at last, clamping his hands on Harry's shoulders and making him stop the spin.

Harry grinned at him, and Draco put his hand over his eyes and squinted. Harry retracted his magic with a murmured apology. It liked to make his eyes and teeth shine brightly lately, at least when he was happy. "I just saw people accept centaurs into the Ministry with Thomas's intervention," he said. "I didn't have to step in and use my magic or my tongue to mediate. They managed it _themselves._ I think Thomas wanted to hit them with a book, and there were lots of stupid things said, but they managed it."

Draco, of course, understood that in his own way. A slow smile widened across his face. "You'll have time for more things than playing nursemaid."

"Yes." Harry tugged insistently at his wrist. "Come with me. I want to hear what happened to you at the Ministry, and then I want to invent spells. As many of them as we can before dinner."

Draco's face softened into a look of something like adoration. Harry made sure the like emotion was shining in his eyes as he kissed Draco on the nose. Then he dragged him up the stairs. Thomas had dragged Harry down them. Harry was just making sure there was some symmetry.

_Merlin_, he was happy. Thoughts didn't have to make sense when he was this happy.

* * *

Connor sighed and flipped through the book again. He knew the Light rituals of greeting now, and they weren't really that hard to master. But they still made his brain hurt, like the Divination symbols had. Yes, he could study them, he could learn them, but he wasn't really sure he _wanted_ to.

Then the door of the library opened. Connor turned around, hoping it was Harry. He'd seen his brother asleep earlier over a book of summoning spells, and while he wanted to apologize, he also didn't want to disturb him. Harry got little enough unbroken sleep in his life.

Parvati peered through the door at him. Connor shoved his book aside. Parvati was biting her lip and looked close to tears, and that usually meant another vicious fight with her parents.

"What is it?" he asked, holding out his hands to her.

Parvati crossed the library to meet him, and took and held his hands. Connor pulled her close, stroking her hair. He loved the way it smelled—not like anything in particular, but like her.

She whispered a word against his collarbone. Connor sat back. "What?"

She looked him in the eye, and then spoke words that set fire to his heart.

"I said yes. Let's do it."


	89. Nothing Gold Can Stay

The title of the chapter comes from the Robert Frost poem of the same name: "Nature's first green is gold,/ Her hardest hue to hold….So dawn goes down to day./ Nothing gold can stay."

**Chapter Seventy-Two: Nothing Gold Can Stay**

Connor knelt on the floor in front of Parvati. They'd chosen her bedroom for the ceremony, since it was the one room where they were the least likely to be disturbed. No one shared it with her, now that Padma had gone home to their parents, and Harry probably wouldn't come looking for him here. Once they began the ceremony, it couldn't be ended.

Parvati had a mulish look on her face, as if she were about to jump off a cliff someone had told her not to jump off. Connor smiled and squeezed her hands, which he held clasped in front of him. He couldn't touch her cheek, as he wanted, until the ritual was over.

"Not what you expected?" he whispered.

"Not what my parents wanted for me," Parvati clarified, with a little toss of her head. "But I _don't_ care. I won't care, Connor." She took a deep breath, and then the clutch of her hands on his intensified almost to the point of pain. "My parents would want something safer for me, a husband and children who wouldn't endanger me. They think Voldemort will go away and leave the world unchanged. But I don't think he will, and I think that we could be in danger even after the war is over, if his enemies want to hurt people important to Harry." She lifted her head and clenched her jaw. "I don't care about that."

Connor paused. He ordinarily wasn't so sensitive to the nuances of language, but since he was the one who had suggested this ritual, he supposed the magic might already be heightening his awareness. "You don't care what they say, Parvati, but do you really want this?" he whispered, eyes fastened to her face.

At once she melted, and leaned near enough to kiss the top of his knuckles. "Yes, I do, Connor," she whispered. "Even when I'm exasperated with you, I love you. This isn't going to go away."

Connor smiled, and began. Luckily, only the first part of the ritual was in Latin, because he wouldn't have wanted to try either his memory or his pronunciation skills with dozens of sentences.

"_Animae ambae_," he whispered, and the air around him took on a slow, sunlit tinge, as if he and Parvati were the center of their own private dawn. Connor took a deep breath. The air had turned sweet, too, filled with the perfume of a thousand flowers. Then the excess perfumes cleared away, and he could smell only one that he recognized from the Hogwarts greenhouses as snapdragons.

_And why not snapdragons? They come in red and gold._

The scent traveled away from him to embrace Parvati; Connor could see the moment at which her nose identified the flowers involved, too. He stifled the impulse to lean forward and kiss her, which was not allowed right now, and waited for her to begin the second part of the ritual.

"_Animae ambae usquequaque_," she whispered, and Connor thought she would stumble on the long last word, but she didn't. She finished in what was almost a shout, in fact, and a pendulum of light swung past her and impacted with Connor's face, leaving him blinking and dazzled.

But the magic had done what it was supposed to. When he could see again, Connor realized he wasn't gazing at Parvati, but at a memory, as sharp and clear as if he were experiencing it for the first time.

* * *

"It's a surprise," Connor said in a superior tone, tugging on Harry's arm. "So I can't tell you what it is yet. And _keep your eyes closed!_" he added, as he saw Harry's eyes start to flutter open when they stumbled over a small depression in the ground. Since he had glasses, Harry was always a little more scared of where they were going.

His brother obediently shut his eyes, but he said, "This could be dangerous, Connor. I wouldn't want to get you into trouble."

"I'm never in trouble with Mum," said Connor airily, because it was true. He got into far more trouble with Remus, while Sirius just ruffled his hair and called him "little pup," and his father couldn't hide a smile—remembering similar things he'd done, Connor knew—while scolding him. "Come on. This is it." He tugged Harry to the very edge of the pond near their house in Godric's Hollow, then cleared his throat impressively. "Now. Look straight down, and not up or sideways or backwards, because that would diminish the impact." That was a phrase he'd heard their mum use the other day, and he was very proud of himself for remembering it.

Harry looked straight down.

And caught his breath. Connor grinned, nudging his twin with an elbow almost hard enough to make him fall into the water.

"Aren't they brilliant?" he said, and proudly surveyed their own private clutch of tadpoles again. The tiny frogs trailed their tails over each other as they darted back and forth in search of food. This close, Connor could see the mad flutter of their gills. He wondered what would happen if he were to duck his head under the water. Could they see his lungs, and would they think the mad flutter of _those_ was funny?

"Very brilliant," Harry agreed softly, and stooped down, running one hand through the water. He captured a tadpole, but didn't try to pull it out. Instead, he just knelt there and stared at it swimming against his palm.

Connor scooped up a handful of water and frog, and blew gently across the surface before it could all drain out of his hands. The tadpole turned and turned and turned, but couldn't find a way out. Connor snickered and dropped it back into the pond, where it almost collided with one of its brothers.

"What do you think we would be like if we were tadpoles?" he asked his brother. "Do you think we'd know we were twins? Or maybe they're _all_ twins? Would you still help me?"

"Always," Harry said solemnly, even as he pulled his hand out of the pond. "I'd show you where all the best food was."

Connor made a face and laughed, because he didn't want to think about what tadpoles liked to eat. In fact, he wanted to go back to the house and have lunch right now, because the taste of sandwiches would be _much_ more appetizing than whatever pond scum the little frogs ate.

Harry followed him up the bank, smiling now and then when Connor glanced back at him. Harry only smiled like that for him, never at their mother or their father or Sirius or Remus. Connor liked it.

* * *

Parvati opened her eyes slowly after the vision, shaking her head. She hadn't expected to share the memory, though she knew from the ritual that the magic would invite in images of those people who also had some claim to share a soul with them, to be part of their circle. But she had expected that Connor would see his brother, and she would see her sister.

That wasn't the case. And Parvati found herself unsure how to react to what she saw: with Connor's delight or the pain she knew he would be feeling now, as he considered the childhood memory in the light of all the changed years that had passed since.

But she didn't have a lot of time to think about it, thankfully, because they were passing on to the next part of the ceremony—this one in English. Parvati turned their hands so that their joined fingers faced the ground. She knew from Connor's face that this was uncomfortable for him, and almost smiled. _You don't know what discomfort is until you have to spend two hours on your knees because Mother and Father were fighting over the New Year's Ritual they wanted to use._

Right now, the magic rested with her, and so she was the one who needed to invoke both the next part of the ritual and the next vision, which she knew would involve Padma. Parvati spoke confidently, thinking of her dedication to the Light and the fact that her heritage came from a Light pureblood family. An unfamiliar ritual couldn't slow her down or frighten her, and this ritual had the added benefit of not really being _unfamiliar_, just not one she would have ever expected Connor to choose. He was so _modern_, really, though with his brother, one had to be. And this was a ritual that had been used to bind couples centuries ago, and then not much used since.

One of the most potent Light marriage rituals, in fact, commonly believed to tie souls to each other so that they would be born near one another again and again.

Parvati lifted her eyes to Connor's face, and whispered, "As my blood and my breath and my bone, so be close to me, beloved."

She gave a little shudder as the first tremors of the magic racked her. The breath was easy enough to give, since it was already flowing off her lips to join the world, but it was a bit more complicated for the magic to take blood and bone from her. She felt the upper bone in her left arm grow a bit weaker, and made a note to rest it for the next week or so. And then she swayed as the blood seemed to stream away from just under her heart, but she didn't fall to the floor and separate their hands, which was a good thing. If that had happened, they would have had to start the ritual all over again.

Connor opened his mouth, as he needed to, and a stream of mingled red and white flowed in at his lips. Connor swallowed, blinking, his eyes watering, but he didn't vomit in spite of what he had to eat. Parvati smiled at him, proud. Then she turned forward as the light glowed around her and flowed into a new image, one of a memory she remembered sharing with Padma when they were both eleven, on the night before they started off for Hogwarts.

* * *

"What do you think it'll be like?" Padma was turned on her side in her bed, one foot scraping the floor. Parvati smiled. That was a sign that she was worried. She could try to hide it, try to make her face all smooth and adult, but the foot always gave her away.

"You've heard Mum and Dad's stories." Parvati let a yawn interrupt her, half-hoping her sister would take the hint and go to sleep, but Padma had always been bad at hints, unless they were clues to mysteries in a story. "I think it'll be like that. The Sorting Hat, classes, Slytherin House being a bunch of gits—"

"I didn't mean _that_."

"Then tell me what you meant," Parvati snapped. "Because our telepathy's deserted me again."

It was an old joke of theirs, that they really did have the telepathy that people always assumed wizard twins did; theirs was just broken. But Padma didn't crack a smile this time. "I meant sleeping in separate beds," she said, leaning forward to stare at Parvati. "Separate Houses. It could happen, you know. Sometimes twins are put into the same House, but not always."

Parvati blinked. "Oh," she said at last, because she hadn't even thought of that. She had simply assumed that she would go to the same House her sister did. How could they be separated? Yes, Padma liked to read more than she did, and sometimes their mother teased Parvati about being a candidate for Hufflepuff, with the stubborn silence she maintained on Padma's involvement in her pranks, but they were _twins_. That mattered more than little things like books.

_Maybe not so little. The Sorting Hat judges by personality traits, you know, and it might put you in different Houses._

Parvati chewed her hair for a minute, then leaned across the distance between their beds and took her twin's hand. Padma sat up. She knew a solemn moment when she saw one.

"We'll make a pact," said Parvati, lightly, which made Padma pay even more attention. She knew Parvati could joke in that tone, or she could be deadly serious. "To still talk about the important things. To be twins, even if the Hat _does_ think that we'll be in separate Houses." To her, it seemed ridiculous, but it could happen. And she knew having shelters against ridiculous things that could still happen was always a comfort to Padma. She was the one who looked up the plants and charms that would counter rare magical creatures and put them around the doorways and windows of their house "just in case."

Padma nodded. "And what words should we use for the pact?" she asked. "What oath?"

Parvati kept herself from rolling her eyes. It was hard, but this was _Padma_, wanting old words instead of their own words. She always wanted something old, and Parvati could sometimes understand that—sometimes, old things were beautiful—but most of the time she thought her sister should be a little more daring.

"There's an oath I read in a book the other day," she said, making it up completely.

"You read?" Padma gasped.

Parvati shoved at her shoulder. "Shut _up_. The truth is, there _is_ an oath that I read in a book, and it goes like this."

She recited a few star names, to make it seem more impressive, and, by the end of those, Padma was looking suitably impressed. In truth, their mother had just taken Parvati outside last night and showed her the stars that had those names, but books had the names _written down_, which was more powerful than words with breath behind them. Then Parvati said, "And we promise that we'll always be sisters and act like sisters, no matter what Houses, or Cassiopeia will come and strike us down."

Padma's eyes were wide. "_Really_?"

Parvati nodded firmly. "Really."

Padma recited the star names and the oath in turn, and Parvati didn't know about her, but _she_ felt a flare of power around their hands, and was content that they were joined in the best way she could think of. Then Padma finally let go of her hand and went to sleep, and that was all Parvati had wanted, really. She turned over in her own bed, and shut her eyes.

She didn't know what Padma would do, really, when she sat under the Sorting Hat—and it would be her turn first. But Parvati suspected _she_ would end up in Gryffindor. It was the House where she would probably find people willing to agree that a made-up oath was a good thing, as long as it shut your sister up and made her go to sleep.

* * *

Connor opened his eyes and blinked. For a moment, he couldn't stop himself from being envious, though if he thought of it carefully, that was as silly as being envious that Parvati and Padma had been born identical, while he and Harry had been born fraternal. But they _had_ had a special relationship, and without a hint of parental abuse or secrets lingering in the background.

And then Parvati was watching him impatiently, and Connor realized that he had a ritual to conduct. The magic was with him now. He coughed and cleared his throat. That was permissible.

Since he'd forgotten the words, he really needed that moment of space the coughing and clearing of the throat provided.

Luckily, it worked, and the next words came off his lips as though made to be there. "By air and water and fire, all the powers of motion, be close to me, beloved."

He closed his eyes as a cold sweat popped out all over his body—the ritual's magic pulling the water from him. The air seemed to leave his lungs in the next moment, and then he shivered; the "fire" would come from his spirit, which he _knew_, but he had never known that it would feel like someone planting a lump of ice directly in the middle of his chest.

He opened his eyes in time to see Parvati swallowing what looked like a mixture of water and air, the water separated into neat strips of blue with equal strips of clear space between them. A moment later, she winced, and one hand flexed in his as if she would like to take that hand away and touch her chest. So the fire had probably come to her, too. Connor didn't relax until he saw the light move away from him and back to Parvati, though. It was the only way that he _knew_ this had worked.

Parvati's voice was clear as she gazed into his eyes. "Willingly we have bound ourselves to each other, by the powers of our bodies, and by the powers of our souls. We have shared visions of those who have some claim to stand in the circle. But we have not yet intruded on our history." She stamped with one foot, and Connor saw traceries of green and gold rise from the floor where the stamp landed, twining up her leg and reaching towards him like vines. _Not Indigena's vines_, he reminded himself, even though it did seem uncomfortably like that. _Indigena is dead. _"Will you share your family with me, beloved, as I share mine with you?"

"I will," Connor said, even though he could feel his face flushing. It was one thing for "everyone" to know what his family had done to both his brother and him, and what that meant. It was another thing altogether for Parvati to share his mind and _know_ how it felt, what he thought and did about it. But he had begun the ritual knowing he would have to do this, and it was rather too late to back out now.

Parvati nodded, and stamped down her other foot. This time, a collection of greenery and gold began to crawl up Connor's leg. When it reached his thigh, it flowed across the space between them and collided, intertwining, with the vines of light that had grown up Parvati's.

The world between them vanished. Connor thought, in the moment before the light swallowed them, that a second sunrise had taken place around them, as if the ceremony were guiding them back to the dawn of time, and the beginning of the Potter and Patil lines.

* * *

Parvati watched in amazement as a house reared itself before her eyes. Then she shook her head. _Of course this doesn't mean that Lux Aeterna was built with magic alone. I'm seeing the house as it grew. Perhaps one Potter ancestor added one wing, and the second another bedroom, and the third a porch._

She could feel the moment when the balance of power in the house truly changed, though, when a Potter ancestor brought home something that shone and flashed and heaved like a sea of metal, and had ambitions of its own. The Maze, she knew; Connor had told her about it. But it was another thing altogether to feel that mind brushing against hers, searching, questing, and then turning away in uninterest because she was not a Potter. Parvati shivered and wrapped her arms around herself—at least, she did if she still had arms. She was not sure if she had a body anymore, or if she stood embodied in the vision alone.

_Like being judged by the sun itself._

She turned, and people were coming and going on either side of her, cupping their hands around their mouths to shout, battling with swords, dueling with wands. Now and then she saw a death, a man falling with his mouth swelling with blood, a woman perishing as she ran from her enemies and collapsed into a thicket of brush, but more often she saw the raw material of life. The Potter ancestors moved along their tracks and refused to pay attention to her. Of course, most of them had never known her, so Parvati wouldn't expect much attention from them.

She moved away from the house, walking slowly among them. She saw one woman, with a face lovely in its determination alone, running from a shape that swooped behind her as gold and red fire, now and then staring at a compass in her hand. She saw a woman speaking to a tribe of brownies, and nodding when the nearest one said something to her in a voice too high-pitched for Parvati to make sense of it. She saw another woman holding up a baby boy with a weary, peaceful expression in her eyes. Parvati found she would have liked to know the story of that woman most of all. There was something about the way she tucked the baby into a cot that said she had known much sorrow, and even the baby's birth was not without sorrow, but it might be the beginning of an end to grief. Since she had always thought that parents had the most to be worried about, Parvati wondered how that could be.

She saw a young man with a jawline and nose that looked like Connor's dancing with a woman, while his gaze went again and again to another man across the room, a man who kept his back pointedly turned. She saw a man who could almost have been Harry if not for his grey eyes backing slowly away from a portrait from which blackness swirled to engulf him. She saw James Potter gently putting a flower on the lid of a shut casket.

There were dazzling images, like thunderbolts, of Courtroom Ten in the old Ministry, where Parvati knew the trial had been held. There were more flashes, probably camera flashes, and she knew that she was in Connor's memories now. She slowed and watched more attentively.

And she knew him better than she ever had before, not from the glimpses of his actions, but from the sense of his personality that seethed around her like water. She knew that he was stubborn, yes, but she had never realized that he was stubborn enough to drive himself into exhaustion just to prove a point. And she had never known that his daring went deep enough that he could make the greatest of sacrifices just because he thought it was right. Fear wasn't quite a stranger to him, but it was enough of a stranger to make him the perfect candidate for Gryffindor, almost the stereotype of their shared House.

Parvati envied that courage. She had often found she had trouble acting, at least until all the other avenues of action were eliminated and there was only one way forward.

And then she stepped around a corner and found herself in a boundless ocean of impulsiveness. Connor did things because they seemed like good ideas at the time, without thinking them through. Those could be taunts and insults to people he shouldn't taunt and insult, or they could be acts of reckless generosity. The main commonality was the never thinking, the leaping and trusting to fate.

Parvati shook her head, a helpless smile curling her lips. She understood, now, both where Connor had found the impulse to propose to her using an ancient Light ritual, and why he had insisted on sticking close to it even after he found out the requirements and how difficult the vows could be to keep.

And bursting on her like flicker after flicker of an eternal sunrise was that conviction he had already explained to her, that one should take happiness where it was found. Seize the sun, don't let it race past.

Parvati held her arms open. She might not always agree with that philosophy, but she could certainly embrace it.

* * *

Connor drew a breath, and found himself coughing. There were unfamiliar flowers all around him, and the shivering, shifting fronds of unfamiliar plants. He turned in a circle, and saw only more plants. He knocked them aside, and there were trees, the trunks at last, swaying so far above him that he couldn't help but feel small.

He stepped forward, and the flowers and trees streamed away on either side of him to reveal the river that hid behind. Connor could see people moving determinedly along the river, driving reluctant cattle, washing clothes, casting garlands of flowers into the water, avoiding the wakes of motion that spoke of crocodiles. Most of the women had black hair and dark brown skin, like Parvati's, but Connor couldn't tell which ones were the more distant ancestors. Now and then they spoke words he couldn't understand, in a language that danced with the water and their motions, and left Connor feeling like an outsider.

But the ritual had brought him here so that he could understand the history of the Patil line, not reject it. It was _his _fault if he felt like that. Connor lifted his chin and stepped forward, determined to be involved.

The scene shifted away from the water and into large houses built in a style Connor had no name for. The houses rose and surged and fell, becoming small sometimes, turning into temples sometimes, becoming open clearings sometimes before they grew walls again. Connor grasped that the fortunes of the Patil line had changed over time. That, he did understand.

A woman with black hair that swept the forest floor battled a fire that tried to burn down a good portion of the trees she felt responsible for, and collapsed in exhaustion only near morning, when her husband came with the help he'd run to bring. A woman with a circle instead of a wand cast a spell Connor had never heard before, and a hill rumbled and faltered and came down. On the surface of water, the same river Connor had seen before or another one, walked a woman clad in such power that Connor had to control the urge to bow. _So Parvati has at least one Lady among her ancestors._

There were men, too, busily building and directing and commanding and taking care of children. Connor watched one of them make an ink from a mixture of juices and blood, and set about writing what Connor supposed was the last letter to a woman he had once loved. One of them trailed blood from a wound high on his shoulder, and died, but he had bought his daughter enough time to get away. One stood leaning on the shoulder of a grazing cow, his eyes shut, dreaming the day away, and Connor knew his life had passed in peace and there had been no need for him to rise to heights of courage, though he could have done so if he needed to.

White faces appeared among the dark ones, and Connor watched as the world changed, with Indian wizards and witches retreating farther away from their Muggles, and magic becoming a rumor and then a distant dream. War struck in new ways, new ideas of country arose, trees fell with their branches singing songs of desolation, and Connor would have liked to stay and watch, but a Patil woman with a young boy in her arms stepped onto a ship and sailed away in the direction of Britain, and the vision, of course, followed them.

He watched as the Patils slid smoothly into the main wake of British wizarding life, accepting the rituals and customs of the country they found themselves in, though in private they would still use the ones of the land they had come from. They had always been part of the Light, and if the Light here was tamer than they had known it, well, that did not matter; it was still the Light. Their children grew up speaking two languages and living in two worlds, and that had always been a matter of pride, a source of strength, rather than something shameful.

Sita Patil rested in a bed with two girls in her arms. Connor focused easily on Parvati, not only because she was the younger, but because the vision drew him to her and pulled him into the center of her blood and bone and breath.

Merlin, she was stubborn. If she needed to do something, she went ahead and did it, and damn the consequences. On the other hand, if she didn't want to do something, she would avoid it and whinge as long as possible—but her conscience could convict her and drag her into doing the right thing, the way that it had with the house elves.

She had pride, and she had vanity, and it wasn't always possible to tell where one ended and the next began. Nor did Parvati truly see a problem with this. So she could not solve the problem with the skills she took pride in? Then she would step away and declare the problem unsolvable, or at least better not solved. Anyone who could solve it might earn a glance of admiration, or a back turned in a huff, depending on how Parvati was feeling at the moment.

She envied Padma. She felt herself dumb, sometimes, because the Sorting Hat hadn't put her in Ravenclaw, and that was where her father had hoped she would end up. On the other hand, she had known she would go into Gryffindor, which the rest of her family had only predicted sometimes, so she had the satisfaction of knowing herself better than anyone in the family did.

She loved like a limpet. Once catching hold, never letting go. Connor basked in that, and grinned when he realized that he could feel a current of Parvati's thought moving through _his_ thoughts. She told him to remember that her irritation could be as long-lasting and penetrating as her love.

Connor did not care. He folded himself around her, and then the vision whirled and bore him back.

* * *

Connor opened his eyes. He still knelt on the floor in front of Parvati, and when he looked at her, he could see the shadows of her ancestors hovering around her shoulders, as she could doubtless see his. With the circle so open, anyone with a right to stand in it could enter.

But now was the time to close the circle, and make it still welcoming, but primarily for the two of them alone.

"I love you, Parvati," he said steadily. He had never been surer of something in his life. Harry was sure about _vates _things and Draco; well, Connor was sure about this. "And I promise that I am yours, soul and body and mind and heart and magic, never to betray, never to turn aside. What comes on the path, Dark or Light or shadowy, we share it together."

"I love you, Connor," Parvati said, and Connor thought his heart would beat its way out of his chest in his joy and excitement. "The path can turn, but it shall never shake us off. And though we may become angry with each other, or despairing, or weary, there is something larger than ourselves that we swear fealty to with this oath." She leaned forward, a breath from his lips, and whispered, "We share it together."

And then, finally, the circle closed around them with a hiss and a blast of light and a high note of phoenix song, and Connor could _finally_ kiss her.

The kiss wasn't all that different from others they'd shared, Connor thought. Her lips were still soft, and the inside of her mouth still tasted nice, and her hair still swept along and tickled his cheeks. But he had wanted to do this, and he had wanted to complete the ceremony, and he felt happy and smug and ready to bounce off the walls, even if the kiss was ordinary.

The ritual blazed around them, and died away at last, but their kiss didn't end until both of them, shared breath or not, needed to take in air. Connor caressed Parvati's cheek as he pulled away from her, and then flexed his hand. It _hurt_ from their long joined clasp.

"Who should we tell first?" Connor asked.

"It's only fair that we tell Harry first," Parvati said graciously. "We're in the same house as he is, after all." Then she grinned. "But _then_ we're telling my parents and Padma. And they can yell for at least ten minutes, all right? And we can both explain to them that they're not going to change our minds. In fact, given this ritual, it wouldn't do any good for them to try and make us change our minds."

Connor snorted. The glee on Parvati's face was infectious.

He almost hoped that Sita and Rama Patil would suggest that he and Parvati were too young to get married. He almost hoped Draco would sneer and insist that Connor and Parvati were idiots to have chosen a ritual that permanently joined them, not to be parted.

_Let them try. Just let them try. _The certainty shone inside him, solid and bright as a golden ring. _I've never been surer of anything in my life._


	90. The World Is Green and Gold

This is one of those chapters that reaches out to embrace a bunch of people. Thus, a lot of viewpoints. It's also the last happy chapter for a while.

**Chapter Seventy-Three: The World Is Green and Gold**

"No."

"But—"

"No."

The woman in front of Hawthorn leaned back huffily and crossed her arms over her chest.

Hawthorn gave her a patient look to contradict the impatient one. "There is very little that I can do for you," she said. "I understand why you don't like being a werewolf—neither did I—but the potion still needs a portion of sacrificed magic to make it work. You were born a Muggle, so you don't have the magic to give up. I hope that in a few years we'll have a version of the potion that _can_ work without using magic that way, but for right now, we don't." She nodded, politely, at the door behind the woman, and started to turn back to the paperwork on her desk. They'd given her an office at the Ministry. Hawthorn had no idea whether that had more to do with her work on the lycanthropy cure or with the fact that, since she was running for Minister, Cupressus seemed to think his organization should welcome her.

"What if I asked someone else to sacrifice his or her magic for me?" The Muggle werewolf had leaned across the desk again, honey-colored hair falling into wide brown eyes as she stared pleadingly at Hawthorn. "Could the potion work if I found someone who would agree?"

"There's a variation that might work in a few months," Hawthorn murmured, touching a piece of parchment that concerned exactly that. "For now, though, the magic has to come from the werewolf healed."

The woman spun and stalked out of her office without another word.

Hawthorn snorted and made a notation on a piece of parchment. The number of Muggle werewolves who had come seeking a cure she couldn't provide was now nearly twenty. Hawthorn refused to feel bad about it. She empathized with their desperation and their helplessness, none better, but she had provided one miracle in her life. She doubted she would receive two.

From what Potions experts had told her when they studied the cure, Hawthorn had achieved it on the basis of will, inspiration, pure blind luck, and her _ignorance_ of the way that most Potions ingredients interacted. She had essentially thrown things together that no one else would have tried, because of the likelihood of their rendering the potion too volatile or stagnant. Apparently, the cure _did_ become stagnant at some points in the brewing process, but Hawthorn had simply pressed ahead through that, where other brewers would have stopped and tried to estimate how much they could recover from the mess. And the pauses she'd taken during the process, while she paced and worried about what would happen when she consumed the potion, had turned out to be long enough to add some life to the liquid.

No, she could not expect another combination of luck and grace and intelligence like that to come again.

But that didn't mean she couldn't work on improving the potion. And it didn't mean that she had to spend the rest of her life only doing things involved with lycanthropy cures and werewolf rights, either.

Hawthorn stretched her arms above her head with a little smile, and nearly yawned with her tongue rolling the length of her mouth, as she had when she was in lupine form. She saw no reason her life should have a bound or a limit. She had survived what the world could throw at her so far. She could survive challenges that she chose to enter of her own free will.

* * *

Lucius walked calmly down the hall, his robes flaring behind him. If anyone did come up behind him and were so crass as to be curious about his whereabouts, they would not be able to tell he'd been outside Mrs. Parkinson's office.

He knew they still had a score to settle. It was in the way their gazes crossed like swords at Ministry meetings. So long as the war with the Dark Lord remained the main priority in Britain and Harry needed unity among his allies, they could put their hatreds aside. But when that war ended—

There would be a duel.

Lucius fully intended to make sure he survived it, and if that survival included spying on his opponent to learn her weaknesses, then that was what he would do.

He reached the small office Apollonis had set aside for him—smaller than Hawthorn's, he couldn't help noticing, almost a closet. He took a seat behind the desk and gathered up the paperwork on it. A faint smile touched his face when he noticed that the first piece of parchment was a letter from the American negotiators he'd been writing to.

The small went rather fainter when he read the letter that informed him his share of power in the American Ministry had grown smaller; they'd discovered that Draco, as Harry's joined partner, had the more influence over him and what magical creatures he might come to the United States to free, and they had learned that Draco could invent spells. Apparently, though some of the Ministry officials would keep up good relations with Lucius, they saw more profit in writing to Draco to get what they wanted. The age factor could make his son small in their eyes, but not for very long, especially since Draco _was_ past the age of magical majority.

And something struck Lucius then, something he had not noticed before. He put down the letter and stared thoughtfully at the far wall of his office, after making sure that anyone peering through the door would not be able to tell anything from his face.

He was remembering, now, the way that Narcissa had not interfered when he instructed Draco in the suppression of emotion and the Dark pureblood rituals that it was absolutely essential he go to Hogwarts knowing, but had often taken their son away for a private talk afterwards. He was remembering, now, that Narcissa had got her way in many things that seemed small at the time, from Draco's name—after a constellation, instead of after his Malfoy grandfather, the way that Lucius had wanted to name him—to the fact that he had attended Hogwarts instead of Durmstrang. He was remembering his wife's soft and subtle comments to their son, comments that could build up, over a lifetime, and change the way that someone viewed the world.

Lucius had wondered why his son was not a more perfect copy of himself. He had blamed weaknesses in Draco, for a long time, and he still thought it likely that his son was not made of the pure metal. Then he had blamed Harry, for overwhelming the independence and pride that a Malfoy should have had.

Now, it seemed he should have looked closer to home. And perhaps even encouraged her, since the changes she had sculpted into Draco had insured that he was doing much better in the world than Lucius.

Lucius set the letter aside. For reasons that had nothing to do with what he had just learned, he told himself, he didn't feel like writing to the Americans right now.

It was time to think, and decide how he would speak to Draco when he saw him again, this time consciously not just his son, but Narcissa's.

* * *

Harry nodded as he watched the hovering star-shape spray its rays across the door of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. "And you'll remain here to guard the people inside when the first day of spring comes, Miranda?" he asked. There were people in the old Black house now, since Harry felt able to control the forces that might harm them in the wake of his proper inheritance. That made the house a possible target when Voldemort recovered his power, of course, so Harry wanted to be sure that the former house elf understood the importance of protecting it.

"Yes, I will!" The star danced back and forth. "I love the safehouse in the north, but I have learned the people there, and I know all their stories. There are new stories here." She skimmed up and down the front door, and Harry saw small sparks of green and golden light fly out and sink into the wood. He shivered. He felt them as tickling fingers that stroked up his sides and down his spine. "I will do what I can to protect them, and I will call on you if the attack falls here."

Harry nodded, feeling one of the worries in his mind collapse. Because he could not say where Voldemort might choose to strike first, he was strengthening the defenses at all the safehouses, arranging at least one powerful protector who would both be able to hold his or her own for a time and summon him if danger came knocking.

"Thank you, Miranda," he said, and stretched out his hand so that her light could fall on his skin. He raised an eyebrow when the door opened, since he hadn't heard the sound of footsteps approaching, but understood when Argutus flowed out and came to him, coiling around his leg.

"_I have been upstairs and downstairs, and something screaming in the wall hurt my head._" Argutus turned himself so that his snout was lying in the hollow of Harry's throat, something he only did when he wanted comfort. "_Can we go home now? I promise to lie on your lap and warm you and be warm. But I do not want to be here with the screaming thing any longer._"

Harry chuckled and stroked the milky-smooth scales. They shone now, with no trace of the dullness that had afflicted them when Argutus showed up at Silver-Mirror in January. "Not yet. We have a few more houses to visit today, and secure against the Snake Lord attacking." He walked out into the blustery March wind, to find a place where he could Apparate in peace, waving farewell to Miranda as he went. The green and golden star bobbed up and down in recognition. Harry felt a great peace well up in him. Here was a house elf who had never known slavery, and who had become what her people were meant to be, again. As soon as the safehouses were secured, Harry would try to free more house elves; if they had known slavery, they could at least know the intoxication of their own proper freedom.

"_He is not my Lord,_" Argutus said. "_I wish you would stop calling him that. If anyone is my Lord, it is you._"

Harry rolled his eyes, and told himself he shouldn't blush over something a snake said to him. It wasn't as though anyone else in the immediate vicinity could understand Argutus, anyway. "It's convenient to call him that in Parseltongue."

"_But it's wrong._"

Harry shook his head. This was an argument that they'd had for weeks now, and he doubted he would win it. On the other hand, it was fun to argue, or at least it could be when his emotions were free and nothing great was at stake.

"Snake Lord, Snake Lord, Snake Lord," he hissed mockingly while he prepared to jump to Woodhouse, and then lost his breath for the hisses when Argutus squeezed him.

"_Remember that I'm a constrictor,_" Argutus said darkly. "_I don't need any silly venom to make you regret taunting me._"

And then, of course, Harry had to stroke his head and flatter him so that he wouldn't feel unappreciated, and that had to continue after they'd Apparated, too. Not even the promise of a new house to explore could pacify Argutus when he was this irritated.

* * *

Snakes had made the seas. Each curling wave was a serpent, and the foam that crashed on the beaches was the poison from their jaws. The humans believed that such foam could not hurt them—they had lost their fear of the sea-serpents—but who knew? Perhaps the venom would grow potent again someday, and then they would scorn themselves for having scorned the danger.

The dreams were near now, were tapestries made of hooks, swelling folds of cloth that leaped and wavered in the breeze of his victim's mind. He no longer had to prevent himself from yanking on them, and revealing his hand too soon. This was _artistry_, and he would no sooner destroy his own artistry than he would forgive Harry his crimes against him and let him go.

His mind raced smoothly among the folds and plunged into another mind he had learned well. He could reach his coiled serpent, the serpent in the breast, even when he was awake now, and whisper the old ambitions into his thoughts, and tug on the tangled threads of dreams and hatred. It was a trick he had used before, but so keen had his patience been this time that no one had noticed the telltale signs. He had _shown_ his victims their nightmares, last time. This time, there was no need for that.

And now the time was very near. The first day of spring. The moment when the balance passed from Dark back to Light, and the power suppressing the Lord Voldemort's own magic would vanish.

He had emerged from his regeneration. He had a clean new skin, the coiled serpent, the serpent beneath the earth, the serpent in the sea, who reached out and called to his unwitting willing child, the serpent in the breast.

They all thought he would burst from the earth and attack Harry's precious safehouses. Or they all thought he would create Horcruxes to replace the ones he had lost, as if any wandering Muggle child would do for the murder, any old shoe do for the object that would hold a shard of his soul.

They were fools. They understood _nothing_. The deaths had to be significant, and the objects trophies laden with emotional depth, or what emerged was not a Horcrux. It was worth nothing. That was the way the world worked. Every shadow was full of hidden webs of significance that the Lord Voldemort had long since accepted no one but him saw. At the very least, it made it hard for his enemies to guess what he would do next.

He had already chosen his next Horcrux. He would Transfigure Harry's Omen snake into an enameled statue, and Harry's death would be the one he used to split his soul. But he need not worry about that yet, even if Harry managed the impossible, summoned Evan Rosier, and destroyed the Cup Horcrux.

But the other, the battle.

They were fools, all of them.

Why did he need a final battle, when he had his serpent in the breast, and the third?

The Lord Voldemort would win not because of what Harry would do—Harry always found some way around his most ingenious plans—but because of what Harry would _never_ do.

* * *

"Leave me alone."

Well, Honoria didn't intend to do _that_. Ignifer had lain under the blankets, a covered lump, for most of the morning. Honoria had spoken sweetly to her, coaxing her to rouse; she had offered breakfast in bed, which Ignifer still treated as an almost unimaginable luxury; she had offered to summon Tybalt and John through the Floo and let them laugh at her partner, lying around like this. The last had been desperate, admittedly, and not worthy of her, but Honoria had hoped the threat to Ignifer's dignity would get her on her feet.

It hadn't worked. Ignifer still lay with her arms around her head and wailed like a much younger child. Honoria rolled her eyes, and, balancing with some confidence now on her artificial leg, decided that she could resort to a child's tactics in return. She conjured a sharp stick, softly enough that Ignifer didn't hear the incantation, and then poked Ignifer in the side with it.

The blankets flew aside, and Ignifer sat up with a wild look on her face. Honoria stood, with the stick hovering next to her, and blinked at her as if she had no idea what had made Ignifer so angry.

"You're finally up!" she exclaimed, and clapped her hands.

"_Honoria._"

Ignifer said that in a dangerous tone, but Honoria had become rather used to hearing people say her name that way. Her mother had run out of ways to impress her with it long before Ignifer entered her life. So Honoria cocked her head to the side, widened her eyes, and pursed her mouth in a parody of attention. "Yes?"

"You don't _understand_," Ignifer said, and ran a hand through the long, bright curls that Honoria found so appealing, and at the moment wished were disheveled for another reason than because Ignifer wouldn't keep her hands out of them. "What is going to _happen_ when my father's Minister? I _know_ he'll win the election, and I know that this compromising attitude he has right now can't last forever. It's the seventh of March, and the election is set for—what—the seventh of May? That means only two more months of freedom before he starts passing laws against the use of Dark magic, just the way that Juniper did. And he'll probably pass laws against children changing their names, too," she added darkly.

"No, he won't." Honoria thought Cupressus Apollonis was a bastard when it came to Ignifer because he _was_, and anyone could see that; it wasn't something open to argument. But she thought Ignifer was wrong about this, and letting her conflicts with her father blind her to the fact that he could want what was best for the wizarding world _and_ be irrational when it came to her. "He's given you up for lost, Ignifer. He'll always be far too polite to you, but that doesn't mean he'll hate other Dark wizards just because you Declared Dark. He's been working with them in the rebuilding of the Ministry, you remember."

"That's only for right now," Ignifer muttered. "The minute he has the Minister's power, he'll change, mark my words."

Honoria snorted and sat down on the edge of the bed. "I know what's wrong," she announced.

Ignifer regarded her warily between strands of hair.

"You want to reconcile with him," Honoria said. "And you don't know how to do it, since you were the one who stamped out. Rather decisively, I might add," she said, with a faint sigh. The lovemaking from that night was still one of her favorite memories, but Ignifer probably wasn't up to a repetition right now, since Honoria had to enlighten her as to her true motives. "But you could _admit_ that, Ignifer, and I could help you figure out a way to reconcile with him. It's not the end of the world, you know, even though you changed your name and refuse to change your Declaration. You can overcome even his irrationality and his stubbornness. I managed to overcome yours, didn't I, when I first took you for my lover?"

Ignifer's mouth fell open.

Honoria patted her hand. "You don't have to tell me how brilliant I am," she said, a bit condescendingly. Really, she could do with accolades for her brilliance, but even if Ignifer offered them right now, they wouldn't be sincere, so Honoria thought she might as well wait to demand them. "I understand you better than anyone else does, Ignifer, even yourself. And I promise that I'll do the best I can to put you and your father into a room and get you to cooperate." The more she thought of this impossible goal, the more her interest kindled. Pranks would _have_ to be involved. And illusions. She felt the glamours of the lions gyrate above her shoulders as she thought of it. "It might take years, but you'll have him back again, and he'll see that he has a daughter to be proud of, not to scorn."

"I don't want to _reconcile_ with him," Ignifer spluttered. "I'm just afraid of what's going to happen when he becomes Minister, that's all!"

Honoria patted her hand again. "Of course you don't want that, dear." _Stubborn to the bone, both of them. It's no wonder they're so miserable apart. They need each other to take out their spleen on._

"Listen to me carefully, Honoria." Ignifer had leaned forward and gripped her hands, staring into her face. "I do not _want_ reconciliation with my father. I'm just worried about what will happen when he's in the position to bring down that peculiar idea of 'justice' he has on the whole world."

"Bah," said Honoria.

And then she had to duck, because Ignifer seemed intent on calling enough fire to char her to a crisp. Honoria grinned as she changed into her Animagus form, her smile sharp enough to cut.

_No, it may not be true yet, but I can make it true. And at least she's not hiding beneath the blankets any more._

* * *

Cupressus gave a small shrug. He could not understand why the people around him demanded certainty, when the election hadn't happened yet and wasn't intended to happen for another few months. "It is likely that I will win the election," he said. "Until I do, I cannot promise you an appointment."

Periwinkle closed her eyes and fought for patience. Cupressus could see that, because he'd known her for years. He wondered what she had expected when she came to see him. She was of one of the Irish Light families who had followed him for decades, and then changed her allegiance to Harry and freed her house elves for money. Had she expected him to simply give her a position when she came questing around, sniffing around? What part of loyalty was alien to her?

"I understand that you may be unable to _say_ yet," she said, finally forcing her eyes open. "But you could _hint_—"

"I have no need to hint," Cupressus said, and held her gaze. "I do what I must do first for the survival of the Light, and secondarily of the alliance, and thirdly of the new Ministry, and fourth of my line. I see no place for hinting in any of that, madam. If anything, I must be honest, because there are too many parties around me who would take innuendo as a sign that I have betrayed one or another of my duties."

Periwinkle rose to her feet, trembling. "You will regret the day when you turned me away, Cupressus Apollonis," she hissed.

"I doubt that very much." Cupressus watched her in puzzlement that he took care to keep hidden. Why did she think such tactics would convince him? What had he done to her, that she thought taking revenge in this way would work?

"I can keep votes of the Light from you." Periwinkle's face was triumphant.

"Then I may not win," said Cupressus. _Ah. That is what she thinks I want. She thinks I am so involved in the politics of it all as to care for my own power. But I am here because I think I can serve the Light here. If the people of the British wizarding world do not want me here, I will go home and serve the Light from there. She thinks she can threaten me because I have something to lose. _

_But the service of the Light is not something one can lose save by one's own actions._

After a long staring contest, Periwinkle whirled and strode from the room. Cupressus shook his head. _There goes one who has forsaken her allegiance in her heart, and begun to hunger after power._

His Floo connection flared. Cupressus turned. There were only a small number of houses he permitted to reach him directly, without going through one of the lower offices, and he knew Harry was still involved in securing the safehouses, as best he could, against an attack by Voldemort.

The face of the woman he supposed he must call his daughter-in-law, because it was the most convenient way to refer to her, appeared in the green flames. Cupressus inclined his head. "Miss Pemberley."

"There are two of us now, you know," Honoria told him smartly.

"No," said Cupressus, wondering that she did not know the usage. "She is Mrs. Pemberley, because she joined into the family, and you are Miss. What can I do for you, Miss Pemberley?"

Honoria only smiled as if he were amusing. To someone who was incapable of taking life seriously, Cupressus supposed, he might be. "I came to talk to you about reconciling with your daughter."

Cupressus blinked, caught out for a moment. Then he raised his eyebrows. "Has she renounced her Declaration to the Dark?"

"No."

"Has she said that she wants to reconcile with me, or that she will forgive me for the infertility curse I cast upon her?"

"No."

"Then I cannot see that we have anything to say to one another." Cupressus drew his cloak around his shoulders and gave a faint shrug. "A reconciliation between us will not work without those things, Miss Pemberley."

"You think so," said Honoria. "But I am determined to make it work, and I think you know how strong my determination can be, Mr. Apollonis."

She closed the Floo connection before he could say anything more, and left Cupressus regarding the hearth thoughtfully.

The partner Ignifer had chosen for herself was very far from the one he would have chosen for her: female, and therefore unable to give her children; Dark; half-blood; of a family so minor that its son had almost not spoiled himself by marrying a Muggle.

But she was forceful. Cupressus could grant her that. And if she did manage to reconcile them, then he would be forced to grant her a measure of respect, as well.

He put it out of his mind as he strode from the building. He would not resist the reconciliation if it happened, as long as at least some of his own wishes were respected.

_What happens, happens, and all is the will of the Light._

* * *

Owen took a deep breath and pushed his hair back behind his ears. Shoulder-length, he noted absently. He should really cut it, or perhaps just trim the ends a bit. Shoulder-length hair on a head of family was appropriate.

He was surprised to find out how much he _enjoyed_ politics.

Yes, he had enjoyed being near Harry, guarding him and fulfilling the duties of a sworn companion, too, but that had been a different kind of enjoyment. He had been serene then, knowing exactly what he needed to do and how to do it. It was the pleasure of competence, of trained muscles and magic doing what he told them to do.

Here, in the Ministry, serving as liaison with the Dark families and their representative to Light wizards like Cupressus Apollonis, his mind had to work harder than ever, flinging itself through myriad wheels, like a Crup trained to perform in a circus. And still there were always demands pressing against him that he hadn't thought about, and ruffled tempers to soothe, and laughter that followed him and might or might not be directed at him. This was like dancing across broken glass and eggshells, with the knowledge that a shard could pierce his foot at any time.

It was _wonderful._

And here came one of the women he needed to see now. Owen patted his robe pocket and stood.

"Miss Nonpareil, ma'am!" he called, and watched her turn around in surprise. Faustine Nonpareil wasn't used to people calling for _her_ instead of Elizabeth, her older cousin, who was the head of the family and the one most people paid attention to, since she had all the money and all the prestige. But, of course, Elizabeth had no _sense_, and while to most Dark wizards that just made her more convenient, since she couldn't challenge their dominance over her, Owen was determined that _no_ one who was Dark and running for Minister would look like an idiot. Not even if she really, really wanted to. And that would have to include Elizabeth.

"Yes, Mr. Rosier-Henlin?" Faustine asked. "What can I do for you?" Like her cousin, she wore black and silver, but the silver was weaker on her, the black more severe. Owen liked the effect. She shone like a comet when she walked the halls of the Ministry, and her family had been sending her to walk them more and more often, since she was one of the few immediate relatives who could manage Elizabeth. Her hair was dark, her eyes were dark, and her complexion was dark, though Owen couldn't immediately tell if her heritage was Indian, Egyptian, or something else. "Has Elizabeth made another mistake?" The grimace at the mention of her cousin was so fleeting that one would have to concentrate to know how she felt.

"Not as such," said Owen, and held out his hand. Faustine looked at it, but didn't clasp it. "I wanted to know if you would be amenable to doing something that would improve the reputation of the Nonpareil family, or at least hold it steady through this election. I do not want to see Elizabeth making such a fool of herself as to stain the rest of you."

Faustine's eyebrows rose. "And why would the fate of another family matter to you so much, Mr. Rosier-Henlin?"

Owen kept his hand out. "Because I've been watching Light wizards, Miss Nonpareil."

"Really."

"Yes." Owen shifted so that the books under his other arm were more firmly balanced, and, hopefully, so that his arm wouldn't start to tremble with weariness. "They cooperate to protect their allegiance, the best of them, to insure that Light children will grow up with the chances that come with being Light. I think we should do the same, those of us who can, to protect the Dark."

_I didn't judge her wrong, _Owen thought as her eyes fired. _Yes, she's interested, and she can look beyond herself, and even the end of her family's interests. _It was the rare Dark wizard or witch who could, even now. They simply weren't trained to it the way the Light ones were.

"That sounds _very_ interesting, Mr. Rosier-Henlin," Faustine said, and this time she took his hand, letting her fingers slip along his palm. "In more ways than one."

Owen felt his brow flex, and then he smiled. Well, why not? A bit of flirting never hurt anyone, and it might make things more interesting.

"I have an office where we can talk, Miss Nonpareil," he said.

She gave him a smile as deep and dangerous as a well of still water. "Please, Owen," she murmured. "Call me Faustine."

* * *

Syrinx wondered sometimes if anyone had noticed. She didn't think they had.

When Laura had sent her to Harry, it had been because Syrinx was entering the phase of her war witch training where she would need to find an anchor—the person who kept her sane, who inspired her, who was her example—and she had chosen Harry. A few of her relatives had argued against the choice, saying Harry was likely to die any day, and did Syrinx really want to be left in the shattered sanity that would follow if her anchor perished? Look what had happened to Augustus Starrise when his sister died.

But Syrinx had been sure. One couldn't argue with a war witch, or perhaps one couldn't argue with a determined Gloryflower woman, and so at last they had given in, muttering, and Laura had sent her to serve Harry as a sworn companion. She had been one of three, and then two, and then four. It was rather interesting, watching how the patterns swarmed and how they changed.

But more interesting than that was watching Harry, and gathering her feet under her, and becoming a war witch, and making him her anchor.

He was a good anchor, Syrinx knew. Others might see him as undeclared; in fact, they let the idea of his Declaration rule them to the extent that they could not see what he _did_, what magic he actually used, or what he believed. But she had watched him in quiet moments when no one else was about to observe, and in the midst of battle, and she saw the Light that underlay his morals, shining and singing like a flute buried long ago but enchanted to play when someone brought it into the sunlight again.

The Light understood free will, and Harry embodied it.

The Light valued cooperation, and Harry built alliances.

The Light knew peace, and that was what Harry longed for.

The Light loved honesty, and Harry stuck to that where he could, even when it damaged him.

The Light enacted restrictions, and so did Harry, holding back his power when he could easily have used it, limiting himself _voluntarily_. The Dark wizards around him had the most trouble understanding that, Syrinx knew. Why wouldn't you exercise all the power you could, claim all you might, take all you wanted for yourself?

They did not ask the question that was the complement of that: Why _would_ you?

So he was her anchor, and she walked with him in the guise of an emotionless servant, the war witch in this phase of her training, while under the surface lay a wonderful sunlit world that only she was aware of. The sunlit world stretched, and blossomed, and she leaned much that even her older relatives did not know, because Gloryflowers rarely ventured out to meet Dark wizards, and rarely battled beside them when they did.

So no one had noticed her sculpting herself into what she had wanted to become, but that did not matter. Now she had completed the sculpting, and left this phase of her training, and she could press forward into the next.

Syrinx lifted her head and _became_.

* * *

"But you can't just do that," Padma argued.

Parvati felt a great peace. "We can," she said. "We could. We did." She had decided, after all, to tell her twin the great news of her marriage first, in private. There would be time for shouting and tears from Rama and Sita later. But she wanted to hear what Padma had to say separately from what their parents would say. "We're married, Padma, and it's one of those bonds that will not let you leave it. So I'm bound to Connor for all this lifetime, and probably in the next as well."

"That's _stupid_," Padma pointed out. "What happens if one of you dies?"

Parvati shrugged. "Well, we can actually get married again, if we wish, but not with the same ritual, or another as binding. And I could always have lovers. Or he could have lovers," she had to add, though she didn't like to think about it. "But that's the kind of thing that we chose to accept when we chose this ritual, Padma. Believe me, I took a long time to think about it." An unconscionably long time, it seemed to her now, since their wedding had turned out so well. " And now we're married, and no one can separate us. Even if we weren't of legal age, this binding would take precedence over any claim of family, you know."

Padma scowled at her, and muttered something Parvati couldn't believe she'd heard. "What?" she whispered.

"I said," Padma repeated, "that I would have liked to be invited to attend my twin sister's wedding."

And then Parvati felt as if clean air were pouring in on her, because Padma _wasn't_ angry with her, not at all, and she understood the reasons that Parvati had wanted to marry Connor like this, and even with one circle of her soul closed so that she only shared it with Connor, they were still sisters.

Parvati extended her hand through the Floo connection, and Padma grasped it back. They knelt there on either side of the flames for a moment, not mirror images of twin girls, but something better than that.

Then Parvati pulled her hand back, and asked, "Do you want to be in the same room when I tell Mum and Dad?"

"Of course," said Padma, and her small, vicious smile made Parvati expect that she'd enjoy the yelling from both sides. _Well, she can enjoy it. I would never deprive my sister of that._

* * *

"Potter! Wait up."

Connor turned around, his eyebrows raised in polite inquiry, but his inner child snickering. He'd expected Draco to pounce on him much earlier in the day, actually. People around the kitchen table, when he'd first seemed to notice the remnants of the ritual hanging about Connor and Parvati, had probably kept him from it, though. "Malfoy," Connor said, returning last name for last name. "What's the matter? I believe Harry's still out at the safehouses, since it _is_ only ten days until Voldemort attacks, after all—"

"What ritual did you perform?" Draco scratched his nose, and then scratched the centers of his palms, as if he had to convince Connor that he really did itch all over. "It's been driving me _mad._"

"Oh, that." Connor gave a little shrug, making sure that it was casual. "Parvati and I joined in a marriage ritual a few days ago. We talked to Harry about it afterwards, and he gave us his blessing. I didn't mention it to you because you've been busy with those new spells for the Ministry and I didn't think you'd really care about such things, but—"

"You did _not_ get married, Potter." Draco's cheeks were flaming patches of color in a very pale face.

"Yes, we did," Connor said, controlling his intense enjoyment. He had known this would shock Draco, and that had been one of the first pleasant side-effects he'd thought of when he first discovered the ritual in a book. "Oh, granted, it wasn't an enormous ceremony like some couples have. Or a three-year-dance," he added, because he couldn't help himself. "But that doesn't mean it isn't legitimate. It's based on a justice ritual. It would have separated us, violently, if one of us was unwilling, or if we had agreed at first and then backed out halfway through the binding."

"But you can't be _married_," Draco repeated. "It's impossible. You're still impossibly childish, and you know it."

Connor clapped him on the shoulder. "I suppose that I should take your word for it, of course, mate," he said. "The ritual must have been a mirage, and Parvati must have shared the same dream, since she's walking around thinking we're married, and even mentioned it to her sister and her parents. At least they'll be relieved, though. They were awfully angry we married."

Draco jerked away from him. "Why did you do this?" he hissed.

"I think the better question, Malfoy, would be why do you care so much?" And Connor turned his back and left him there, spluttering, because of course Malfoy didn't care so much about the marriage itself as the fact that something had happened which he couldn't predict.

Connor slowed when he passed Michael standing at a window, staring out into the sky, tears streaming down his cheeks. The temptation to pass on was great, but—well, he was Michael's friend, in a way, if only because no one else would be, so that made it his duty to ask after things like this.

"Michael?" he murmured. Perhaps the other boy wouldn't hear him, and then Connor could creep on.

Michael whirled around and caught Connor in an embrace. Connor blinked and stood still, wondering what had happened. Luckily, Michael told him immediately, instead of demanding that he guess.

"Connor," he said. "I got—I got a letter from my brother. From the Ministry. He's thinking about me! He even gave me a Portkey so that I can visit him whenever I want." He held up a pebble, and his smile was wide enough to stretch the burn on the side of his face. "He's _thinking_ about me," he whispered.

Connor patted him gently on the shoulder and then detached from him. "I'm glad, Michael," he whispered. "So glad. If anyone deserves to have the notice of his older brother more often, it's you." He remembered when he would have given a Quidditch victory to have Harry pay attention to him.

Michael smiled at him, and bounced off. Connor stood where he was for a moment, feeling a silly grin widen across his face.

The world was full of light.

* * *

Thomas sat back and stared at the book expectantly. It looked thick enough, having a wooden cover and creamy parchment pages. The gold lettering on the front proclaimed what it was, _A Record of Common Sense and Morality._

He picked it up and hit himself over the head with it.

The stunning impact traveled down through his skull, and Thomas dropped his forehead to the table, gasping. It _hurt_, but the pain was only a distraction, really. He was much more interested in seeing if the knowledge he'd imparted into the book, of moral precepts he'd only read a few times, would brighten and glow inside his mind.

And—

Yes! It was happening! Thomas would have danced if it weren't for his pounding headache and the book crushing his hand and the fact that the knowledge probably still needed time to trickle down and really settle into his mind. It didn't yet work as _well_ as he would like, since the words were just silent, as if someone had read the book to him once, and not repeating themselves in his head, but he could improve it.

And then, there would be no excuse for anyone anywhere in the _world_ to be stupid.

Thomas smiled. The world was full of light.

* * *

"Thank you, Neville." Henrietta smiled up at the Longbottom boy as she crouched over the vines he had helped her pot and settle when they arrived from the Yaxley garden. "I could never have done this without you."

Longbottom nodded and wiped his forehead with the back of one hand, leaving a long streak of sweat in the dirt. "They were tricky ones to settle, Professor," he said. He still called her that, though the chances that Henrietta would ever teach at the rebuilt Hogwarts were nonexistent. "I'm glad that you called on me. I'd hate to have seen them die." He eyed the dark green vines with silver markings down the middle as if they would die now just to spite him.

Henrietta nodded back. "And you won't tell anyone about them, of course, will you, Neville?"

At once his face paled, and he all but stumbled away from her, swallowing at the same time as he tried to speak, so that the result was rather muffled. But Henrietta still made out the, "Of c-course not, Professor."

Satisfied, she turned back to the pots as Neville ran away, and stroked a finger down the middle of a vine. It curled around her finger and tried to hold tight, but Henrietta eased her hand gently away. She'd tried the vines on herself, of course, and they had worked to perfection. It would be considerably harder to use them on Harry, but she had twenty-five pots here, and the vines still had some time to grow before the equinox arrived.

She could not wait.

Harry really should have paid more attention to the fifth stanza of the fourth prophecy.


	91. The First Day of Spring

**Warning:**This begins a series of very tense and dark chapters that don't end until Chapter 80 and the story's climax. No specific warnings for this one, except a **cliffhanger,** but if you don't like suspense, be warned it doesn't let up much for the next few days.

**Chapter Seventy-Four: The First Day of Spring**

Harry rubbed the sweat off his hands onto his robes. He had just reached the calm, balanced state of mind necessary to cast the summoning spell that he'd found in the old book in the library, when—

"Are you sure this is going to work?" Draco muttered.

His concentration thrown _yet again_, Harry turned around and hissed, "Of course I'm sure! Will you _shut up_ for a while?"

Draco folded his arms across his chest and looked sulky. Harry took a deep breath and turned back to the rune circle in front of him. He'd created it with Henrietta's help—she knew something about rune circles—and Draco's—he knew something about them, too, when he wasn't getting stuck in them—and Argutus's—he could reflect the runes in his scales and tell Harry if they were right or wrong. Argutus currently clung around his neck, watching the circle, and Draco sat at his right shoulder. Henrietta had said she had other things to work on, but had promised to come at once to Harry's call if the summoning spell actually worked.

Harry saw no reason why it wouldn't. He'd worked Evan Rosier's name into the runes in every imaginable permutation. He could visualize the man far more clearly than he liked, with his heavy stare and mad, laughing dark eyes. He had even put blueberry pies around the outer rim of the circle, following the advice of the book that said he should try to make it worth the summoned person's while to show up.

But this was still powerful magic, Dark—because it trod the line between free will and compulsion—and dangerous. Harry would have to be extremely careful not to tip over that line and actually _command_ Rosier to appear, or he could lose his position as _vates_. It would be more like a combination of manipulation and persuasion, at least once he made contact with Rosier's mind. Thus the blueberry pies; those in themselves might be enough to tempt the madman.

_And then you must hope that he has the Hufflepuff Cup with him, and you must find someone who will agree to be the sacrifice._

That last was the part Harry resolutely avoided thinking about. He locked his gaze on the rune circle again and summoned walls of calm to rise in his head, cutting him off from those sights and sounds he didn't need to absorb. That included Draco's breathing and the rustling of his robes. He didn't like the summoning spell, didn't think that Harry should be even partially alone while calling Rosier, and didn't like the fact that Snape and others were poised behind doors to break into the room if he should succeed. Harry had explained that he couldn't concentrate if they actually were present _in_ the room, but Draco had not wanted to listen. That had been the cause of another yelling session last night, and was probably part of the reason that Harry had so much trouble settling his mind now.

_Of course you will, if you think of everything but the summoning itself, _Harry's thoughts said sharply, and slapped him back into position over the incantation he'd memorized.

"_Cito Evan Rosier!_" he said, the words welling up from inside him at nearly a shout. There were other summoning spells he could have used, including ones that were variants on the _Accio_, but this spell left more free will for its victim. The Latin phrasing implied that Harry was calling on Rosier as an expert in his chosen field.

Yes, in a way, it was deception. But so long as Rosier still had the option to refuse the call, Harry was leaving open a loophole. It was not something he would have risked three years ago.

_You would not have risked many things three years ago. Now, for Merlin's sake, shut up and repeat the incantation. It's been three heartbeats._

"_Cito Evan Rosier!_" The words tore themselves from Harry this time, the spell doing what it needed to exist. A thin tracing of green light glowed above the runes of the circle, and Harry tried not to think about how much it reminded him of the light of the Killing Curse. Then it dived into the runes, and Harry could feel it running over the reconfigured letters of Rosier's name like fingers running down his own spine. He shivered convulsively, but kept kneeling there, counting his heartbeats until the moment came to repeat the chant. The spell took the time to learn that name beyond the point of turning back or mistaking it.

"_Cito Evan Rosier!_"

The green light spun up above the rune circle, twisted and twirled there like a noose, and then shot out, fading as it hit the wall. Harry could see rushed, blurred buildings and forests and pools and gardens passing by. He guessed those were the representations of other minds, what a Legilimens would see looking through someone's eyes. But the spell was not interested in them; it reached, always and only, for the one that would say _Evan Rosier._

"_Cito Evan Rosier!_"

Harry wasn't sure that fourth cry was him; the instructions for the spell had only said it would happen, not who would say it. The spell could have been speaking for itself. They were very close now, he knew. The summons cut through the air between them, and firmed. It would not drag Rosier in, like the more powerful summoning spells would have, but it would let him know his presence was desired, and present him with the choice to answer the call or not.

Harry braced himself. He was almost sure that Rosier would choose to answer the call, if only because he'd like the chance to hurt Harry. That was the reason for the rest of the rune circle, and Argutus's and Draco's presence there as well as Harry's own. Rosier's sanity and magic could do unpredictable things. Yes, it was unlikely he would manage to break the ring, but Harry no longer took risks with his own life when he didn't have to.

The summons snapped taut. Harry clenched his fists. The book had described that happening when the spell had hold of the prey it wanted to find. It still would not compel him to come, but it would stay there, unable to be ignored, until Rosier chose one way or the other.

And then the spell collapsed. Harry yelped in pain as an invisible fire scorched his hands, and had to grab hold of his knees, hard, to keep from tipping forward into the rune circle. Draco was at his side in a moment, snatching his shoulder. Harry looked back to meet a pair of eyes that was similarly wide.

"What happened?" Draco demanded.

The answer sounded in Harry's head before he could respond, an ageless, sexless voice that simply said, _Evan Rosier as you understand him no longer exists._

Harry hissed as the release of magical energy backlashed into him. The runes of the circle went flying away from each other, bouncing like disturbed scree from the walls and the floors. Argutus whinged about pieces hitting his scales, but Harry's mind was on the spell's message.

"The spell failed because we tried to target the wrong mind, apparently," he said. "_Evan Rosier as you understand him no longer exists._"

"What does _that_ mean?"

Harry shook his head, but his mind was on the small smile Henrietta had given him when Harry came to her and asked her to help him with the rune circle, since she understood both rune magic and Evan Rosier the best of them all. "I don't know, but I'm going to ask Henrietta."

"We failed to snare him," Draco pointed out unnecessarily.

"We couldn't have sped up either finding the spell or constructing it." Harry whirled the runes into the air with his magic, wary of touching them by hand. They could still shimmer with sparks of power he wasn't ready to absorb yet. Though he wouldn't show it to Draco, because he did not want Draco to be smug at him over not being ready, that backlash of magic had _hurt._

"Tomorrow is the first day of spring."

"I know."

"Voldemort will be moving—"

"I _know_, Draco, I _know!_" Harry spun around, and the magic around him billowed and rippled like disturbed curtains. "I _know_ that, all right? I _understand_ that. That doesn't mean there's anything I can do about it. We did the best we could to retrieve the final Horcrux before he attacked again, using a plan that took a long time because it was a _good_ one. We failed. Now we'll just need to hold off his attacks as long as we can tomorrow, and then track Rosier down and destroy that Horcrux. And then we can kill him." He clapped his hands together, sending out a blast of blue wind, because that would be better than the things he _wanted_ to do to Draco just then. "You act as though I don't know the requirements of defeating Voldemort. I do. _All_ of them."

Draco's face was tight in a way that said they would be sleeping in separate beds that night. Harry didn't care. He stomped away up the stairs with Argutus, and tried to convince himself that his network of defenses in place, behind powerful protectors who would contact him the moment they sensed Voldemort moving to the attack, was a good one. He had done everything he could to shelter those who didn't want to flee Britain. The rebuilt Ministry and the rebuilt Hogwarts were under close guard, along with all the safehouses.

He had done what he could. He could not anticipate every move that Voldemort or, as it turned out, Evan Rosier would make. He would do everything he could think of, and if Draco had any better suggestions, maybe he should _offer_ them instead of keeping them behind a smug smirk.

* * *

The call came at noon.

Harry looked up from lunch—he'd finally decided to eat something after a frustrating conversation with Henrietta, in which he talked and she smiled at him and stroked the sides of her teacup and said nothing—to see a flare of golden-green light above him. He rose, his heart beating hard. That was Miranda's signal.

When he raised a hand and invoked the connection to Silver-Mirror that he had as Black heir, everyone in the house heard him. The doorknobs and the walls, the floors and the chairs, spoke with his voice.

"Voldemort is attacking Grimmauld Place," he said. "Miranda is there, and house elf magic will hold him off for a short time, but we must go. Everyone who wishes to join me, meet me in the kitchen in no less than three minutes." He dropped his hand, and the walls and furniture went back to being no more than silent mirrors.

He felt little to no _fear_ as he waited. He knew that he would see Voldemort again, and not kill him today, because they did not have the last Horcrux in their possession. But, at the same time, he thought he was prepared to do battle. He'd drain Voldemort for all he was worth the moment he saw him. No talking him out of anything, no letting him capture Draco, no slowing down to listen to his taunts. Harry just wanted his magic, which Voldemort would fight to protect, and he would grab that and drag on it until nothing was left.

Footsteps pounded down the stairs, and Draco ran in, his hair looking windblown. Snape followed him, and Henrietta, and Ginny, Thomas, and nearly everyone else in the house, it looked like, though Harry didn't see his brother, nor his sister-in-law. He wasn't surprised. From the sounds, Connor and Parvati had been up rather late the night before, for purposes that had nothing to do with fighting Voldemort.

"Did you think you could leave me behind?" Draco muttered, shouldering his way to Harry's side.

Harry stared coldly at him. "I said nothing about leaving you _behind_," he pointed out. "As long as you could make it into the kitchen in three minutes, then you were welcome."

"But you would have left me behind if I didn't."

"Just like everyone _else._"

"I'm not everyone else."

Harry opened his mouth to shout, and became aware that the people around them were watching them with varying degrees of disgust and amusement. He shut his mouth, instead, and cleared his throat. "We're going to Grimmauld Place," he said. "Everyone who hasn't seen the house often enough to visualize it, grab onto someone else's arm." He watched approvingly as Ginny latched on to Thomas, and Henrietta to Snape, who looked repulsed. "Come."

And they Apparated.

* * *

The burrow was filled with laughter, echoing and diving and darting across the walls.

Harry had fallen for his trap. There was no need for blood and battle, not when the Lord Voldemort carried the advantages he did, the advantages that had lain slumbering in the darkness for more than a decade, the advantage that began here, where it all began, and would end here, where Harry would end.

His magic joined the laughter, whirling blade-like around the walls, humping and traveling in waves like an obsidian serpent. Strong he was, and mighty, mighty, mighty. Power enough to shake the oceans respired in one breath. His magic roared and rose and clawed at the air like a dragon.

And _this_ was the power that Harry thought to stand as heir of? This was what he imagined he could both take from the Lord Voldemort and control? It was not enough. Not even the inheritance process, which favored the boy because magic flowed naturally from magical ancestor to magical heir, would be enough to give him strength here. The power was too great, a wave of darkness, blowing away from him and then slamming back into his body when he willed.

There would be no final battle, because the Lord Voldemort would use Harry against himself, would use the traits he would never betray against the ones he would. There were things that mattered to Harry more than the war.

What would Harry _never_ do?

The walls of earth that Falco had carved for him shook like dolphins leaping at sea. And the Lord Voldemort calmed his magic, because he did not mean to collapse his home yet. It had to endure, because he had carved torture chambers he meant to use.

He sent out the call, tugged on the tangled fabric of hatred and need and power embedded in his serpent's mind. The serpent stirred, sluggishly, and then began to do what he was told.

_The third, the third, the third!_

* * *

Harry arrived at Grimmauld Place, and tasted the familiar violent, acrid tang of Voldemort's magic in the air. He charged forward at once, hearing Draco yell for him to stop, and not caring. If they got there in time, then they could back him up. But what he needed right now was to drain Voldemort's magic; he was the only one who could do that, and there it was right in front of him, thick as dark treacle.

His blood was up, his anger free from its long prison around his deadliest enemy for the first time. There was no way that he could have refused the call.

Miranda was dancing in front of the door to Grimmauld Place, still denying the bastard entrance. The wards parted for Harry, of course, and Voldemort, a blurred figure in the midst of magic like heaving smoke, as if he hadn't wanted the Muggles who lived on either side of the house to stare at him, turned away from the house elf magic to face Harry. Red eyes shone from the smoke like fires of lava burning far down in a volcano's throat.

Harry smiled, and opened his _absorbere_ gift.

Voldemort was doing the same, but he was _just_ a bit slow. Harry's gift was open first, and he didn't bother drawing on the smoke and the magic that Voldemort had draped around himself for show, tempting though it was. He pulled at the red eyes instead, and they went out. His enemy shrieked—in confusion and pain and anger, Harry knew, not fear.

_That will be remedied._

He drank and ate, crushing up the magic as it passed down his throat, the sides of the gullet bracing and flexing as he swallowed. This was easier than it had once been. Distantly, Harry wondered if that came from his growing familiarity with Voldemort's magic, or from the fact that this time, he was actually determined to take the power away, having no lingering distaste or distrust about his ability to swallow magic.

Not everything set free from the prison within him when he drained his Occlumency pools was positive, a stray thought informed him.

Harry ignored it, and concentrated on draining the magic. It was almost sweet, now, in the way that even the foulest-tasting potion could become sweet when one knew it would soothe the pain from a broken limb. He could feel Draco at his back, a steady presence, and just knowing he was there sent Harry to new heights of determination. He couldn't back down, because Draco was there and he had to protect him, and because he would _show_ Draco that he'd been ready for this battle. No, they hadn't destroyed the last Horcrux yet, but if Harry could weaken Voldemort sufficiently, as he had managed to do in the Chamber of Secrets after he tormented Snape, then he could leave him lying helpless for enough time to secure and destroy the Cup. And this time, there was no Indigena Yaxley to spare her Lord.

He heard Draco yell a curse, and a line of red light glowed and flew over Harry's shoulder to strike at Voldemort.

And went straight through him.

Harry didn't stop swallowing the magic, because by this point he couldn't, but he was startled, and he increased his efforts to mash the food. _What happened? Did he actually manage to step aside from the spell, even though he's blind? _

Another spark of unease struck him just then. _For that matter, why isn't he trying to drain me back? Why isn't he taunting me? Is he just in too much pain? But I've never known him to be in that much pain—_

Harry hit the limit of the magic he could swallow just then, and had to close his gift and concentrate on incorporating the power into himself. He could feel it squirming within him, evil and determined to twist him for its own ends, but Harry had had experience taming Parseltongue magic and Voldemort's power and Dumbledore's by now. He bore down, and the darkness went away, flowing smoothly into him. It still resented him, but as time passed, it would become indistinguishable from the other magic that Harry used.

And the smoke dissipated.

Harry roared with rage as he realized what the smoke and the red eyes and the magic he had drained had been. _A glamour. A sending. He made a construct of himself, powerful enough to fool me and Miranda into thinking this was the real thing, and sent it here to attack._

_Then where is the real attack? And why would he give up part of his magic like that? He doesn't _do _sacrifices. What in the world could he gain, what attack on what other safehouse, could he make that would cause him to give up enough of his magic to make this deception convincing?_

And then Harry knew, as if someone had slung the answer like a stone into his skull, or Thomas had written a book proclaiming the knowledge.

_To get me away from Silver-Mirror._

Harry swung around and Apparated.

* * *

Connor yawned and pushed his hair out of his eyes. He felt extraordinarily sleep-mused and even now, knowing that he'd missed his brother's summons to battle because he'd been slumbering too deeply, more than satisfied. He chewed a piece of toast, thought about what he and Parvati had done last night, and grinned. He wondered if Harry had thought of intruding to pay him back for all those times Connor had broken in on him and Draco.

_I'm lucky that I have a brother more understanding than I am._ He licked crumbs from his fingers.

A footstep echoed behind him, and Connor turned, surprised that Parvati was already done with her shower. But then he realized it was only Michael edging into the kitchen, and he grinned and waved him over. Michael refused to take a seat, though, fidgeting nervously, eyes downcast.

"Do you think I'm a coward because I didn't go to battle with them this morning?" he whispered, so softly that Connor could hardly make it out.

Connor frowned, surprised by the illogic. He'd thought they'd got beyond this. "Why would I, Michael? After all, I'm here myself. It was a matter of how fast we could get to the kitchen when Harry called us, not cowardice or bravery." He considered. _Should I have marmalade or butter on my final piece of toast? It's so hard to decide. Or I could go up and surprise Parvati in the shower._

"I'm glad," Michael said, his voice barely above a breath. "I'm glad that you think that of me. You've been a friend to me, Connor, even when I haven't deserved one." His head drooped, and he stared at the kitchen table as if it were the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen.

Concerned, Connor stood and went over to him. "Come, now," he said, putting a hand on Michael's shoulder. "If you don't have confidence in yourself, how can you expect your brother or Harry or Draco to do so? No one likes talking to someone who mopes around feeling sorry for himself no matter the cause."

Michael took a deep breath and looked up at Connor, with a slight nod. "I suppose you're right," he said. "At any rate, you've had more confidence in me than I merited. Thank you." His face widened into a gentle, melancholy smile. "_Portus._"

The whirl of a Portkey grabbed Connor, long before he had time to stagger back from Michael. The only slight comfort he had was that Michael came along with him. The much bigger discomfort was that they were going somewhere unknown, and Connor had left his wand on the table beside his bed.

His mind worked frantically, dragging up a memory he couldn't have recalled at any ordinary time. _He said that he got a Portkey from Owen. Maybe he wanted to take me to visit his brother this morning, or negotiate between them, and he just didn't know how to ask. He's not very good at asking for anything._

And then they landed in darkness, and Connor knew it wasn't the Ministry.

He tried to lunge upwards, soft earth stirring beneath his feet, but magic grabbed him and slammed him to the ground. Connor barely got a breath before he was frozen, his head held back at an awkward angle, so that he could see both Michael, staring at the Portkey in his hand, and the white shape, far too familiar from nightmares and battles, stalking towards him.

Connor drew in his breath to scream at Michael to run, and then Michael turned his head, and Connor saw his triumphant eyes, and the hand-shaped burn on his face he'd received in the fall of Hogwarts, and felt the scream die in his throat.

_He was marked by Voldemort. He hates Harry. That kind of hatred and a mark that Voldemort inflicted himself can be used to control someone, the way that he controlled Snape, the way he tried to control Harry._

_Shit. Oh, shit._

The words seemed to fall into a deep well inside Connor, pebbles that set up no echo. He gave a shiver, and for a moment the red eyes swung to him. Connor winced. There was a distant pain behind his scar, not nearly like the roaring agony that Harry got, but like something stirring, burrowing through his skull. Luckily, it went away after a moment, and then he only had Voldemort's smile and magic to face.

_Only._

"You have done well, little serpent," Voldemort hissed, and then put his long fingers beneath Michael's chin and tilted up his face. "And now, go back to your den. You want to see Harry's face when you tell him what you did to his brother, don't you?"

Connor's muscles seized up, as much as they could under the bonds. _He's going to let Michael say where we are? Then—_

That was the problem, though. Connor had no idea where they were, other than underground. And if Michael had been brought by a Portkey—a Portkey that Voldemort destroyed now, with a casual flick of his fingers—and Apparated back, he wouldn't know, either, and anyone else would be mad to follow his directions and simply Apparate in with Voldemort waiting.

_Assuming Harry stops to listen to those directions, before he kills him, _Connor thought, and felt a brief, hot flare of satisfaction.

Then Michael was gone, and Voldemort turned to him, and Connor felt his head easing back to bare his throat.

"I will cut through Harry's Occlumency," Voldemort said softly. "We want your brother to see what's happening to you, don't we?"

_The only rule, _Connor thought, as he returned glare for glare, _is to put off screaming as long as you can._

* * *

Harry landed back in the kitchen of Silver-Mirror, and yelled, without pausing to search, "_Connor!_"

There was no answer, though that shout surely should have brought one. Harry tried to calm his frantic breathing, tried to tell himself that Connor might still be sleeping in after his night with Parvati—

And then Parvati came running through the doorway, a towel wrapped around her dripping wet hair, and demanded, "What about Connor? Where is he? Has something happened to him?"

A whip of darkness struck Harry's heart, starring it into ice. He heard more pops behind him as other people passed through the wards, but he couldn't turn to look at them. He lunged up the stairs, calling for his brother with all his might, while at the same time he woke every single ward and set it looking for Connor.

The wards were more efficient than even his wandless magic. They came back to him before he reached Connor's bedroom. There was no sign of Connor anywhere in the house. But there had been, a few minutes before Harry Apparated back in, signs of Portkey use.

Harry felt his throat burn. His mind was cracking like his heart had at the implications. He whirled away into a tunnel with a maelstrom awaiting him at the bottom, and his breath sped until he was hyperventilating, and he had to lean against the banister because he was going to fall.

Then Draco was there, holding Harry firmly around the waist, and murmuring over and over to him, "Harry, it's all right, we'll get him back, it can't be as bad as it looks—"

"Yes, it can."

Harry looked up. Michael stood at the head of the stairs, and gazed down at him with an expression of vicious glee that Harry had last seen matched by Bellatrix Lestrange, his fingers tracing the burn on his face, over and over.

"You took so many precious things from me," he hissed at Harry. "My brother, my mother, my sister, my self-respect—" His eyes flicked over Harry's head, and focused on Draco. "The one boyfriend I wanted to have." His gaze fastened on Harry again. "And you never, you _never_, paid attention to me the way you did to other people, or tried to extend your sympathy to my losses. _Never_. You didn't even care that I was making friends with your brother, you thought I was so harmless." He drew himself up. "Well, now I've proved you wrong."

"Where is he, Michael?" Harry thought Snape had asked that. Then he realized it was his own voice.

"With the Dark Lord." Michael held out his hands and laughed a little. "I'm afraid that I can't give you a more specific location."

A moment later, his face went white, and he sagged against the banister, though he didn't scream. Harry's magic had broken his arm. Harry only felt the impulse of the rage a moment later, as the magic twisted and flowed past him and lazily circled Michael, humming and purring. He could have lied to himself, told himself that that was the taint of Voldemort's magic and not his, but he couldn't. He would rip Michael apart if it would get him the answers he wanted.

"Where is the Portkey you used?" he demanded.

"The D-Dark Lord destroyed it," Michael said, and then coughed as the magic tightened around his throat. "Sent me back here to tell you," he added, with a spark of defiance.

_Snap, and snap, and snap. _Harry stove in three of Michael's ribs. He was three parts of his mind: magic, and clear thoughts, and the roaring pain beneath that, so that he did not have to feel everything from the loss of his twin yet.

"Was it worth it?" he asked, in his father's voice.

Michael tossed his head up, panting. "Yes," he whispered in a strained voice. "Oh, _yes._ You have no idea. The look on your face—"

Harry drew back one hand. He knew what would happen when that hand traveled forward. Michael would die.

Draco snatched his wrist, and then interposed himself between Harry and Michael, leaning hard against his arm. Harry stared at him. He could see Draco, but only in between darting, twirling particles of white and red. "Get out of my way, Draco."

"No," Draco said, as calmly as if he were speaking to Lucius about tea.

"He has to die."

"Oh, yes, he does," Draco said. "But there's someone with a greater claim than you have to destroying him, someone with a greater _duty_. Remember the Dark pureblood dances you learned as a child, Harry."

And then he did, and Draco was right, and murder drew back and circled away and left him alone. Harry dropped his hand. Draco didn't let it go, but pulled Harry close to him, one arm circling his shoulders.

And then Harry drew a breath, and began to weep like a thundercloud breaking. Distantly, he was aware of Draco binding Michael, and speaking slicing words about how nothing he could have done would be enough to earn Draco's respect, but that was distantly.

His mind was full of pain and grief and guilt and screaming panic. Every time he tried to make a plan, he crashed full-on into the fact that he didn't know what Voldemort would do with Connor.

The first of the Occlumency pools around his scar boiled into mist and vanished.


	92. Intermission: Love Grows Bitter

The title of this Intermission comes from lines in Swinburne's "Hymn to Prosperine": "Laurel is green for a season, and love is sweet for a day;/ But love grows bitter with treason, and laurel outlives not May."

**Intermission: Love Grows Bitter With Treason**

Owen shut the door behind him with a click so faint that he thought no one could have heard it save one who was listening for it. So, of course, Michael jerked his head up and fastened his eyes on his brother with a hunted, fervent look in them. His fingers, which had moved together in front of him like a nest of blind, burrowing worms, intertwined and interlocked, and then froze.

They had told him what his brother had done.

Owen moved a step forward, slowly. This room was a bare stone chamber, one of the many in Silver-Mirror that had been used for storing treasure. Then Harry had removed the artifacts in search of one that could help him fight Voldemort, and shifted treasures around so his guests could be comfortable, and it had become a mere construct of four walls and a floor. It made a perfect prison. Michael could find no weapons here, and he could not dig through the walls, and he could not charm the door open or the walls to weaken without his wand.

The question he asked then was predictable, but because he had to know, he had to ask it.

"Why?" His voice was quiet.

Michael laughed rackingly, as if he had contracted some fatal disease. Then he stopped, and said, "You know why, brother."

"I want to hear you say it." Owen's hand curled around his wand, deep in one robe pocket. Frustration shifted past his eyes like dark weed caught in the maze of a flowing river. It drifted on and was forgotten. He stood with his gaze locked on Michael, and waited for confirmation.

Michael tossed up a hand airily, and spoke the same way. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe because our mother and sister died, and still you didn't let that change your attitude towards me. Maybe because Harry made all these promises that he couldn't keep. Maybe because he's the center of the world, or thinks he is, the admired, the adored, the self-centered _vates_, and he never looked beyond himself in the way I needed him to. Maybe because—"

And then he was on his feet, and had Owen not been prepared for that, he might have overcome him and wrested his wand from him. As it was, Owen turned slightly, neatly, to the side, and Michael sprawled on the floor. Owen put a foot in the middle of his back. He had always been stronger than his brother, he thought, with the detachment necessary to this. In all things.

Michael struggled to rise. Owen ground down until he heard the crack of bone, and Michael cried out and went still.

"Tell me," he whispered.

"I wanted Draco," Michael whispered back, alone in this place before him. "And he rejected me. And neither of them even cared to look at me again, to ask me what I thought or how I felt or acknowledge that I was _dangerous_. I wanted to hurt Harry. I wanted to be part of something that hurt him. He deserved it. Draco doesn't—that's just the way he is, glittering, beautiful, selfish—but Harry sold himself differently. And then it turned out he wasn't different. I had to show him that."

Owen nodded. It was what he had expected, but it had to be done. The condemned was allowed a confession.

He drew his wand.

Michael, twisting to look up at him, saw it. For a moment, he went still, and then he snorted. "Going to torture me, then? Your Lord allows that?" His voice was twisted, mocking, and he stared at Owen's covered left arm as if he could see the lightning bolt scar there. "I knew he was just a Lord after all, not a _vates_. Did he tell you that he tried to kill me, when I first told him what I'd done?"

"Draco told me." Harry had been in no shape to tell Owen anything. Besides, he was motionless just then, under the influence of Dreamless Sleep. Snape had forced it down his throat when Harry saw the first vision of his brother's torture and began to scream. Draco had fed Michael the healing potions, and told Owen the truth, and then sat back and looked at him in silence for a long time.

They were both the heirs of Dark families. They understood each other.

"That was good of him," said Michael, and his face softened with some hint of an unnameable emotion. "Did he say—anything else about me?"

Owen moved back and lifted his boot, letting his brother scramble to his feet. "To tell you that he hopes the wild Dark makes you its plaything for eternity," he answered, leveling his wand, "for hurting his partner, and kidnapping his brother-in-law." Draco disliked Connor, but Connor was still connected to the Malfoys, unavoidably, and one did not _do_ that kind of thing to a Malfoy relative.

Michael stared at him. "Owen. What are you going to do?" Puzzled, so puzzled, as if he did not know.

And perhaps he did not know, for he had always been deficient in education. Owen recited the words as his father had recited them to him, the day Charles sat him down and explained about the less pleasant duties of a family heir, a family head. "The head of a family is covered in glory, but the glory depends from responsibility. When a member of the family betrays his allies and dishonors his name, it is the family head's responsibility to remove the dishonor. Otherwise, the chain of responsibility cracks, and the bauble of glory is revealed for the fool's gold it is."

"You and metaphors," Michael said, and tried to laugh. It sounded rather hard with a dry throat.

"I am going to kill you," Owen said.

And Michael's face was white, all white. _He didn't think I would actually do this, _Owen realized, meeting his twin's eyes. _Maybe he wasn't deficient in education, this once, maybe he did know what his treason meant, but he never thought I would go through with it. _

And that made Owen weary with a great weariness, because one thing Michael should have learned about him by now was how seriously he took his promises.

"And present my head to Harry, I suppose," Michael said. He tried to drawl. It didn't work.

"The heart used to be traditional," said Owen, and began to summon all the force of his will. "In this case, since Harry would not want to subject me to having to cut apart my twin, I imagine your body will do."

"No," Michael whispered. "You can't do this, Owen. You can't. I'm your brother."

"You are a disgrace to the Rosier-Henlin name." Owen's voice was as steady as his father's would have been. And in that moment Owen was glad that Charles was dead, that he had not lived to see his son dishonor their name. "The family has always been more important than the individual."

"I was controlled by Voldemort! I was—"

"The actions, and not the intentions, matter." The magic filled him, welling towards the tip of his wand. "If Millicent Bulstrode had encountered her father on the field before he died, she would have been no less obligated to kill him. The laws are absolute."

"Draco didn't try to kill his father—"

"The Malfoys," said Owen very precisely, "have not always been concerned with honor." And then there it was, the moment when he must let his magic and his will fly or lose them all.

"_Avada Kedavra._" He said the words tenderly, with love, granting his twin the dignity of a painless death, which Connor Potter would not have.

There was no shield against the Killing Curse.

Green light filled the room like a prayer.

When it was done, Owen stepped forward and gazed for a moment into the still eyes. He mourned, but distantly, gently. The brother he mourned was one he had lost already, drowned into the currents of jealousy and hatred.

Michael had, perhaps, not been meant for the strict life he found himself living, the life of a Dark pureblood, the life of a Rosier-Henlin. But he had been born into it. He should have lived it, or he should have rebelled utterly and utterly fled, separating himself from what was left so that no one would expect its obligations from him.

He had tried to choose neither, tried to have all the rewards and none of the laws, and so his glory lay on the ground in smashed pieces of gold.

Owen opened the door. Draco waited there. He looked past Owen, and his face changed in no particular except to grow colder.

"It is done?" he asked.

Owen inclined his head. "It is. The dishonor is avenged."

He walked out of the room, up the stairs, and to the roof of Silver-Mirror. He stood there for a time, watching the stars as they turned in their courses.

The life he lived was a cruel one, in some respects. He wished he could have lived it beside his twin.

But it was the life he had, and he had never given himself—never known _how_ to give himself—in a way that was less than full-hearted. He was no halfway wizard, no halfway companion, no halfway family head.

He could be no halfway brother.

He had failed Michael, and that failure would walk with him like the ghosts of his parents and his sister. But he would have failed him still further if he had excused this and let Michael go on living as a spoiled, indulged child, never understanding what he had done wrong.

Besides, he knew what Draco would have done, or Harry, if he had not taken up the task of executing his brother himself.

His mourning and his mind alike were one pane of black glass, and his spirit was a light, cold, crisp gray, like morning on the first day of spring.


	93. The Decay of a Mind

**Warnings**There **is torture and gore**in this chapter. Please don't read the sections with those things if you think they'll upset/trigger you. This is not, in any sense of the word, a pleasant chapter.

In addition, this chapter ends in a **cliffhanger.**

**Chapter Seventy-Five: The Decay of a Mind**

Connor had long ago given up his vow against screaming. If he hadn't, then he would have bitten through his lips and his tongue, and then probably screamed anyway. Harry had said once it was better to gracefully surrender and rob your enemy of this means of stealing your dignity than to sit in stubborn silence when the torturer would win anyway.

Except that Voldemort was winning _anyway._

He had already done some of what he had made Connor understand were minor tortures: broken his fingers, pulled his fingernails, applied hot knife blades to his back. He had done it all expressionlessly, and that was the memory that most remained with Connor out of the mess—that white, mask-like face watching him—when everything else had become a haze of pain. Then he had used healing spells, and Connor had been physically whole again, but with the memories in his mind like another scar. And Voldemort had cast a spell over him that appeared to do nothing, but which was long, complicated, in Latin as well as another language, and which Connor was sure would be taking effect any time now.

The worst thing, Connor thought, somewhere in the panting mire that his brain had become, was that he knew Harry was seeing all of this. Voldemort had told him so, carefully working through Harry's Occlumency and sending the visions to him. Of course, he could have been lying, but Connor had seen the expression of joy on his face just before the torture began. He thought Voldemort would find it hard to feign that much glee unless he had cause.

But then Voldemort began to unveil his latest torture, and Connor understood that, no matter how much it was convention to say so, the worst thing was _not_ his brother seeing this. The worst thing was suffering it. The pain extinguished thoughts of Harry and brought Connor close to the edge of screaming madness.

It began with a nail.

Voldemort drove the nail through the fleshy underside of his arm and directly into the earth. Connor arched his back and screamed, but his enemy gave no sign that he had heard. He began to cast a long, intricate spell centered on the nail, while Connor lay shivering in shock, trying to come to terms with there being that much agony existing in the world.

He only became aware that his arm was changing when he felt his skin crawl in an odd way. He looked down.

McGonagall could not have done better. Brown streaks of corruption, the color of fallen autumn leaves scattered across a pavement and trampled in the rain, extended away from the nail, up towards his elbow and down towards his hand. Where they went, the flesh turned to sludge, sliding stickily away from the magic. Connor's muscles locked as he realized that this was his _arm_, the bastard was doing this to his _arm_, he couldn't be expected to stay silent in the face of this—

He screamed again just as the streaks locked into place, at the end of his fingers and at the crook of his elbow.

His bones began to melt. Connor reconstructed that later, because at the time he'd been kicked into a maelstrom of red and black that utterly consumed him. He cried so hard that something ruptured in his throat, and he tried to roll under the pain, the way Harry had described doing in the graveyard when Bellatrix cut off his hand, but there was no way under it. The pain _was_ all that existed, over, above, under, below. Connor could not stop screaming.

Voldemort gave him time to recover, of course. When both his bones and flesh were sludge, Connor could draw a breath. He promised himself that he would not look at his arm, and, like all his promises since he came here, it was broken. He glanced down.

Voldemort Transfigured what was left, gathering up the broken slime and reshaping it into a tentacle.

Connor stared at the thing now growing from his right shoulder, and retched. Had his head still been bound down, as had happened at the beginning of the torture session, he would have choked on his own vomit. He managed to turn his head this time, but his chest still grew warm and soaked with small sliding pieces of food.

The tentacle crept over his face and crouched there, palpitating like the wings of a black butterfly. Connor could feel it tugging at his skin, as if his cheeks would shred any moment and fly into the thing's suckers. And he could picture the tentacle worming into his face, sinking into the bones of his skull, turning them to pulp such as his arm had become and feeding on them—

And this had been his arm. His _arm._ It was part of him now, made from the remains of his limb.

There was darkness and pain everywhere, and there was no end to it. Connor could almost feel his mind decaying. No one could walk through this unchanged. He would never again be what he had been.

There was mourning as well as pain in his scream. The tentacle wormed down and sealed his mouth shut with a sweet paste.

* * *

Harry could not take it. He had awakened from the Dreamless Sleep in time to see Voldemort begin the Transfiguration of Connor's arm. The Occlumency around his scar connection with the bastard was utterly gone now, and whenever he tried to summon more—a pitiful attempt, given that he _wanted_ to see what was happening to his brother—Voldemort effortlessly cut through it. He saw the visions with his eyes opened or shut, though they were a little clearer in the darkness behind his eyelids.

And Voldemort had whispered the cost already, before he began the first torture session and during this one, while Connor writhed whimpering on the floor. Harry didn't think his brother could hear. The Dark Lord knew Harry was watching, though, and knew he heard.

"All it will take, Harry," Voldemort said, without a smile in the face of crushing reality, "is for you to come to me. _You_ are the one I want. You know it. My magic cannot be complete while the tunnel between us exists, and I want complete power. And will you really regret ending, when you know it saves your brother more pain?" His eyes never blinked, being made of magic. "I know you, Harry," his voice whispered. "You once said you would die if you knew you caused more pain being alive than being dead. And now that time has come."

Harry really thought he could have endured it if some of his Occlumency pools still existed. Then he could have shut his emotions away and thought about what his going would do to the war effort. He could have thought of more people than his brother writhing tortured in a deep cavern.

But the pools were gone, and his emotions crashed through his head, rampaging, blaming him and suggesting things to do all at once. He had never realized, truly, how sharp the teeth of guilt were.

So he had feigned sleep when Snape came to check on him and make sure the potion was keeping him silent, and now he crept down the stairs towards the front door of Silver-Mirror. One part of his plan was clear. He would get beyond the wards that protected the house, and Apparate.

The images of the burrow wavered in his mind like water disturbed by the touch of a hand.

It _had_ to be enough to serve as an Apparition target. It would have to be. There was not—he could not—

He would have had to go if it were Draco. He could not have abandoned Draco to the necessities of war, frowned thoughtfully and said, "Well, I suppose I must stay safe, since my life is worth more to the war than his."

And he would have to go to Connor.

He came level with the kitchen, and relaxed. The front door waited a short distance away now, and no one had stopped him. He wondered if Michael had been executed yet.

Then he forgot about it as the Voldemort behind his eyes cut Connor's new limb off at the shoulder. And Harry sagged sideways, because, this time, Voldemort had found a way to transfer the physical pain as well as the image through the link—perhaps using a connection Harry and Connor had through their birth as twins, like the blood bond that allowed them to use the Switching Potion. Fire ate up and down Harry's right side. He didn't scream. He couldn't scream, because sound would alert someone and prevent him from preventing more of this pain. Worse, and worse, than having his left hand taken.

A crushing pain centered in his chest, and he realized he had stopped breathing. Harry gave a choked sob and swallowed a whoosh. He had fallen so that he leaned against the kitchen doorway. He scrambled slowly up to his feet, and summoned his magic to wrap his right side in layers of soothing, cool air. It was cheating, but if he continued to be this distracted by pain, he couldn't Apparate, and that meant he couldn't save Connor from this.

Something coiled around his feet and tripped him up.

Harry fell, and then the same weight rolled expertly around his legs and crawled across his chest. Harry forced his eyes open and found himself meeting Argutus's gaze. The Omen snake hissed at him. It was the first time Harry had ever heard him on the verge of panic.

"_I saw a vision in my scales. You were moving. You were going to go. And then the vision ended, and I knew you would be dead if you went."_ Argutus's head wove back and forth endlessly, a series of little hisses breaking free around his words in what was the Parseltongue equivalent of curses. "_I don't want you dead. You're my friend._"

"I have to go," Harry whispered. "You don't understand. This is my brother dying, and it's my fault—_ah!_"

He arched his back, because Voldemort had figured out something new to do to Connor, and was breaking his spine, small tiny bone by small tiny bone. Harry felt Connor's terror of permanent paralysis as clearly as if he were in the same room and his brother were speaking to him. He rolled, frantic, his magic lashing misdirected, but coming more and more under his control as the fear focused. He had to get _out_ of the house, had to find Connor and exchange their places. Merlin, he was so tired of _hurting,_ and of _causing pain_, and that was what had to end.

Footsteps vibrated in his head as if he had become a snake, to hear them that way, and then hands curled around his shoulders and forced him to his feet. Harry stumbled. He couldn't walk, could he, since Voldemort had snapped his spinal cord?

Draco was shouting into his ear. "Harry, you can't do this! You know this is what he wants, for you to walk up to him, defenseless, and unarmed by pain. You can't—"

"I would if it were you!" Harry screamed, so powerfully that something tore in his throat. "I would if it were Snape! This is my _brother._" He got his feet under him, though still not control of his magic, and lunged for the door.

Argutus squeezed him, stealing his breath and spilling him to the floor. Draco's arms wrapped around his shoulders, and Draco murmured meaningless nonsense into his ear until he said, "Sir? You have another vial of the Dreamless Sleep, then? And it's safe for him to take that this soon?" A pause. "Good."

_No!_

Harry did his best, but the visions behind his eyes and the pain echoing up and down his body made it hard to move even as they fed his resolve. Someone opened his mouth. Someone else poured the potion down it. And someone else, or maybe the first or second person, made sure he swallowed it.

Harry raged as he disappeared into the blank peace of slumber, though none of them could hear or feel it. _I have to be here to see what he does! Don't you understand? Who can be witness to this, if not me? And who can stop it, if not me?_

* * *

Connor did not know what was happening. Voldemort had stopped torturing him, and used healing spells and potions and magic Connor didn't like to think about to repair his spine and give him another arm that looked exactly like his first one. That did puzzle him, in the very small part of his mind where he could think about such things. Why wouldn't Voldemort want to kill him in front of his twin? Or did he think Harry was asleep right now or otherwise unable to focus, and so he was waiting until Harry was fully conscious and could "appreciate" it better?

He stood, on his feet, with a whip in his right hand and a knife in his left. And he shivered, and did not know what would happen.

Voldemort gave a low hiss. A pair of snakes writhed into view through the burrow entrance. Connor cowered instinctively, an old, remembered pair of golden eyes dominating his mind. Strange how the Chamber of Secrets could still seem so frightening to him, or the idea of dying at the eyes of a basilisk, when he was in the middle of an experience far more terrifying.

But they weren't basilisks, Connor saw a moment later. Properly speaking, they weren't snakes at all, just constructs of magic. They dragged a burden to Voldemort's feet and then vanished into wisps of smoke. Voldemort spent a moment staring down at the bundle. Connor craned his neck, but the way Voldemort stood made it impossible to see what the thing was.

Then Voldemort stepped aside, and Connor saw, with a horror that appalled him so much it clouded his understanding, a girl of about twelve lying at his feet. Muggle? Pureblood? He could not tell, and it didn't matter. If she were magical, Voldemort had certainly made her a Squib already.

Connor lunged forward, trying to stick Voldemort with the knife, trying to save her.

In a moment, he hung suspended above the ground on a meathook he couldn't see but could feel in his neck, and Voldemort smiled lazily at him, his long yew wand swinging in his hand like the claw on a massive cat's paw.

"I cannot use compulsion on you," he said, and then laughed. Connor was not sure what was so funny. "And our—connection—is not of the sort to encourage commands, though perhaps at the last I could try to separate your scar from you. But some methods of control are beyond your opposition." He gave a lazy flick of his wand, and if Connor's own terrified heartbeat had been a notch louder, he would have missed the incantation. "_Imperio._"

Fog came crawling into Connor's mind. Connor had heard the Imperius Curse described as a comforting sensation, a yearning to do exactly what the caster told you to do, but this wasn't like that at _all_. This was more like the mist that could shroud a particularly lonely walk home, and make him fear what horrors lurked in it. He retained enough of his will to be horrified by it, but not enough to make the difference in resisting it. He suspected Voldemort had probably learned to twist the spell to produce exactly that effect, because, of course, Connor thought, with a bitterness that shocked him, ordinary Unforgivable Curses weren't enough for the Dark Lord.

The meathook dropped him. Connor staggered in the sand, then rose and walked towards the girl.

"You know what to do," Voldemort murmured, and stepped out of the way.

And while his mind did not, his hands did.

The whip struck the girl across the stomach, and she woke from whatever stupor or slumber the Dark Lord had put her in. She opened her eyes, saw him, and screamed.

Not for very long. The whip coiled out, found its target, and pulled. The girl's tongue came loose from its bearings, yanked by the whip. She still wailed, her mouth filled with blood, but the sound had grown muffled to a series of croaks. Connor could feel Voldemort's pleasure from behind him.

He wanted to cry. He did cry out for the Light, in his mind, but there was no answer.

He slapped the girl again and again with the whip, taking one eye, taking the top of an ear, taking any beauty she might have had left in her face. The tip of the whip was iron, coated with what smelled like some of the more acidic ingredients they'd used in Potions class. Wherever it struck, it left a wound that would sink deep and mar forever, assuming the girl was allowed to live past the torture. Connor did not think she would be.

His hands knew she wouldn't. When Voldemort grew tired of the whip, Connor knelt down and began to carve her alive, to joint her as if she were a pig he were preparing for food. He felt his stomach buck and heave and roil, but either Voldemort kept that under control too, or he had simply retched everything in it up during the first rounds of torture and there was nothing left. He did have to pause in his carving several times to dry-heave.

The girl screamed throughout it, until he cut too deeply, and there was too much blood, and she was dead. Connor's hands never faltered. He prepared her carefully, slabs of flesh on a blanket of skin, and when Voldemort bade him, he picked up one piece and put it into his mouth, chewing slowly.

Voldemort ended the Imperius Curse then, of course, so that Connor had something to expel from his stomach this time. He dropped the knife and the whip, but it was too late, wasn't it, with the images of what he had done carved into his brain? And all around him was the Dark Lord's gentle laughter.

* * *

Harry woke slowly. The Dreamless Sleep hadn't lasted as long this time. He wondered dismally if his own magic had worked to burn it up, knowing that Harry wanted to be awake and see what was happening to his brother, or whether Voldemort had found a way to get through that barrier, along with the Occlumency shields.

His heart banged against his chest, and his mind banged inside his skull. He lay still, watching Connor carve and eat the girl, because he was in the middle of a shock too numb and deep for tears. Then he started to move to throw his legs over the bed, but a voice spoke, and Harry froze. _Someone's in the room with me. I should pretend to be asleep long enough for them to leave._

"What are we going to do with him?" That was Draco, but it actually took Harry a moment to identify his voice. He sounded so simple, so weary, in a way that Harry hadn't heard from him in months, since at least his mother's death. He was a child begging for reassurance from an adult, and it was Snape who answered in that role.

"I do not know," said Snape. "The Dreamless Sleep will hold him for a time, but _only_ a time, before it becomes too dangerous to use. We must, instead, speak to him and convince him to remain here, that going to his brother will damage the war effort. Even if he went there with the intention to kill Voldemort instead of sacrifice himself, he could not manage it. There is still the last Horcrux."

"We can't convince him of that," Draco said simply. "You don't understand, sir. It's not just the emotional shock of seeing his brother tortured like that. I saw his eyes. He's going mad. The strain will make him _unable_ to listen to us, unable to realize the very rational points you bring up."

"The only other choice is keeping him drugged until Potter dies." Snape's voice showed strain of its own, now. "Do you suggest this? Especially when the Dark Lord might toy with his new pet for months?"

_I would do as much for either of you, _Harry thought, his hands clenching under the blankets. _Don't you realize that? If it were you taken, sir, or you, Draco, I'd go after you. I came for Snape in the Chamber of Secrets. I took Draco from Rosier, and I froze when Voldemort had him. Why don't they see that I can't abandon him just because it's Connor? They may dislike him, they may despise him, but _I don't,_ I love him, and I'm the one who has to make this decision._

"Not that," said Draco. "But I think there's one other thing that may work." He hesitated for a long moment, then said, "Sir, will you leave us alone for a few minutes?"

Snape caught his breath. "You mean to say—"

"Yes, sir. Harry's awake, and has been for the last few minutes." Harry heard the chair Draco was sitting in creak as he moved across the room to the bed. A moment later, a hand caressed his cheek, welcome as a drink of cool water across his tongue, and Harry couldn't stop himself from leaning into it, even as his conscience told him, sharply, that Connor was suffering right now, and why wasn't he on his way to stop the suffering? "I can always tell by the way he breathes, now. And I need privacy for what I'm about to tell him."

_He must mean to help me!_ Joy flooded Harry like Light, like phoenix song. _I knew he understood, that he'd help me! But he needs Snape out of the room so that we can make our escape. _He gave a compliant little sigh and shifted closer to Draco, as if he planned to cooperate, but he didn't open his eyes. There was the chance that Snape would read the truth, and the hope, out of them with Legilimency.

Snape waited in silence, and Harry _did_ wish he could open his eyes and see the look Draco was giving him. At last, Snape said, heavily, "Very well. Do remind him that he has a father and a lover, Mr. Malfoy."

"I'll tell him what I choose to tell him." Draco's voice was quick and bright with anger.

Snape didn't say anything else, though Harry could imagine his expression. Instead, there came the sounds of his boots crossing the floor, and then the door opened and closed behind him.

Harry opened his eyes at once, and smiled up at Draco. "Thank you," he whispered. "I was stupid to leave by the front door, wasn't I? We should try the roof this time. I can summon brooms, or we can Apparate from there. I should know well enough what the burrow looks like, by now."

"Harry."

And then Harry saw that Draco wasn't smiling, and he saw the utter, quiet focus and determination in the lines around his mouth, and he knew Draco wouldn't help.

But—Draco had sent Snape away, had argued against drugging him into helplessness. If he didn't mean to help Harry get to Connor, then what did he mean to do? Curiosity, and fear, and the desire not to hurt Draco by tossing him aside with magic, kept Harry in the bed, staring up at his partner.

Draco took a deep breath, leaned in, and placed his forehead against Harry's. Harry started. He hadn't realized, until he felt the coolness of Draco's skin, how hot his own scar was.

"I have no right to ask this of you," Draco began. "And if I were a Gryffindor, I'd already be helping you. Sacrificing the world to the individual, and all that. Helping you with your great love for your brother, though it cost me." He took another deep breath, and his face shifted and closed.

"But I'm a Slytherin, and I'm selfish, and I love you, and I _listened_ to what you said about going to Voldemort if he had Snape or me, while Snape only heard nonsensical babbling. There are some things you can't do, that you could never do. Leave your brother to be tortured. Leave me. Leave Snape."

"Yes, yes," Harry whispered. "You _understand._ Come on, Draco, he's making him torture people, he's—"

"And so," Draco said, his voice as heavy as iron bells, "I'm asking you not to leave me, Harry."

There was a long pause. Harry could feel understanding creeping nearer on clawed feet, but he did not want to _feel_ it. He shoved it away when it tried to mount into the forefront of his mind.

"What?" he whispered. "I don't understand."

"Going to Connor," Draco continued, steady as rain, "will mean leaving me. You'll die, and I'll suffer. I love you, Harry. You know how much. And when Voldemort kills you, even if he keeps your bargain and leaves off torturing your brother, he'll come and torment me. Do you want that to happen? Would you really leave me here, expose me to that?"

Harry stiffened. This could not be. Draco would not do this to him. It was not fair.

Except that Draco had been the one to, among other things, keep urging Harry to face up to the truth of his past even when it would have been most comfortable for Harry to just leave things alone. He had kicked and screamed and punched their love into being, because he wanted it. He had chosen the most dangerous Dark ritual for his Declaration he could think of, because he knew the depths of his own heart far better than either Harry or Lucius did.

He did things because he wanted them. And he had the strength to ask this of Harry, to play his love for him against his love for Connor, one thing he could never do against another thing he could never do.

Harry began to cry.

Draco leaned nearer, wrapping him in strong arms, and murmured over and over again into his ear. "It's not done, Harry. We can find a means to capture Evan Rosier and destroy the final Horcrux. And when that moment comes, I swear by Walpurgis and may the wild Dark destroy me if I do not keep my vow, I'll go with you to find Connor. We'll _face_ Voldemort, Harry, and we'll _defeat_ him. The war will be over, and the world will be safe, and you'll have all of us. Just promise me that you won't go now, because I love you, and I need you."

The world was impossible. The world was cruel.

Harry could no more do one thing than he could do the other.

But about one thing, Draco was right. There was still a chance of rescuing them both this way, if only a small one. So far, Voldemort had shown no signs of killing Connor. But Harry would never know if he would kill Draco or only keep him alive through years of torment, if Harry died in this bargain and was not alive to see it happen or not happen.

He knew the strength it must have taken Draco to do this, and someday, when his mind was not breaking and shattering into tiny shards, he could even acknowledge it.

He nodded, and promised.

* * *

Connor could not even keep up with the transformations and the pain now, and by that alone, he knew he would never be the same.

Limbs became spikes of bone that held him to the ground while Voldemort broke his ribs over and over again. Torture drove the blood out of him, and drove it back in again. Voldemort gave him visions of himself raping Parvati, raping the body of the girl he had murdered, tearing Harry apart. He dragged the darkness from the back of Connor's mind to the front, and found the jealousy of Harry he still retained, the jealousy of Draco he had never acknowledged, the fact that Connor considered himself good at nothing but Quidditch and cheering people up.

The world cracked and crazed around him, and not even the knowledge that he had been under Imperius when he killed the girl could sustain him. He had still done it. His hands had been the ones that wielded the whip and the blade, and his mouth had been the one that chewed the meat.

He curled up around himself, and sanity went away.

* * *

Draco sat with his head in his hands, taking deep breaths. He had forced himself through saying those things to Harry, but he had not known how much _effort_ it would take. And Harry, of course, had already grabbed a book on summoning spells and retreated to his room. Snape had set wards to let them know if anyone went in or out. They would know if Harry fled.

Draco _knew_ he would not.

It was one thing to be willing to inflict such pain on someone, another to do it. Draco lifted his head and stared down at his hands, noting with academic interest how they shook. Then he lowered his chin to rest on them again, and closed his eyes.

It had been necessary, he told himself for the fiftieth time. No one else could have made Harry listen. And he _had_ to listen. Too much would be lost if he went to Voldemort, too much sacrificed for the sake of one life. And the idea that Voldemort would keep his bargain and free Connor if Harry went to him was laughable.

And the idea of losing Harry—

No. No. That image could give Draco strength against anything, even strength to do as he had done just now.

It was _horrible._ He was sorry that he had had to do it. But he would have done it again.

He knew, for the first time, the very first time, exactly what Harry meant when he said that he stood witness for the dying because no one else would do it, and someone had to. Draco had lost another part of his childhood that day.

He wondered if his father had ever done something as hard and as necessary as this. He thought not. He would have seen the marks of it if so, and Lucius Malfoy's face was too unlined.

"Mr. Malfoy."

Draco looked up, wondering at the oddly formal tone from Snape. He stood in the doorway, and the moment Draco's glance fell on him, he bowed his head. Draco just stared.

"Well done, Mr. Malfoy," Snape said calmly, and Draco understood then. Snape was addressing him as an adult because he considered him that way.

"You fucker," Draco said, without strength. "You stood outside the door and listened to the conversation, didn't you?"

Snape's eyes showed no trace of guilt. "I had to know what you would say. I was prepared to Body-Bind both of you if you had agreed to help him leave."

"You couldn't have bound Harry for long," Draco muttered.

"I would have used Legilimency, then." Snape took a step forward. "You are right. He is—not sane. He will not be sane until the end of this, if then. There will be healing for both him and his brother to do."

"I'm so _tired_ of this." Draco buried his head in his hands again, not caring how childish it looked. "Pain after pain after pain, and where is the end of it?"

"You chose this when you chose to bind yourself to Harry," Snape said, without malice. "We both did. I knew what I was facing when I helped him rebuild his mind at the end of your second year, and I could have turned aside from the road. But I did not." A shadow slid over his face. "And we should remember that more of this is the result of Voldemort's existence than Harry's."

Draco started to reply, and then Snape turned and was gone like an arrow out of the room. Draco stared after him with his mouth open, then followed hastily. He knew only one thing which would have made Snape run like that now. _The wards on Harry's room sounded._

A terrible anger began to coil itself inside him like a basilisk. If he had made this sacrifice of himself and it was all for nothing, he believed he could be angry enough at Harry to break their joining.

But when they arrived at the open door and the empty room, Snape halted and said at once, "He did not go willingly. He was taken."

"How can you tell?" Draco swept the room with a glance, but he had been far more involved in talking to Harry than memorizing what it looked like. The blankets on the bed were rucked, but they could have been like that earlier; Harry had not had an easy sleep. And the book on summoning spells was tossed aside, but that could also have happened if Harry had decided to bolt.

"The wards," Snape said briefly, and then waved his wand, hissing an incantation under his breath. Smoke flooded from every corner of the room, crossing in front of their eyes. Snape stared hard at it, and Draco did, too, eyes watering, until the smoke curled and assumed the shape of letters spelling out the name of Harry's kidnapper.

_Henrietta Bulstrode._


	94. Morituri Te Salutant

**Warnings: gore.**

The title is Latin, and was the greeting used by Roman gladiators to the Emperor on entering the arena: "They who are about to die salute you."

**Chapter Seventy-Six: _Morituri Te Salutant_**

Harry woke slowly. His brain was fogged, confused. He knew he had taken up the book of summoning spells to study, and to make sure that he could find out how to call Evan Rosier and destroy the last Horcrux _now, today_. The moment he destroyed it, he could face Voldemort and destroy him, since there would be no Horcruxes to protect him anymore, and then he could take Connor home and heal him. And in that way, he would keep both his promise of love to his brother and his promises of love to other people and his duty to the magical creature species he had yet to free as_ vates_. He did see that, once Draco had explained it. If he had done nothing but sacrifice his life against Voldemort—and it would have been sacrifice, since he could not have killed him without destroying the Hufflepuff Cup—then he would have done nothing but buy Connor a few more moments of life. Oh, he might have died in the name of his principles, but he would not have fulfilled them.

Those thoughts were so strong that for long moments he didn't notice he wasn't in his bedroom. Then he wondered if Snape and Draco had come up, administered another dose of Dreamless Sleep, and removed him to a more secure place. He felt a current of indignation. Didn't they _trust_ him to keep his word about staying in Silver-Mirror, once he was convinced of the necessity?

And then he remembered Henrietta.

He tried to sit up. He reached a halfway position before he jackknifed and fell to the ground again. He coughed and looked weakly from side to side. He knew that having visions of his brother's suffering forced into his mind had reduced his visual acuity and his perceptiveness, but he should surely have noticed his bonds before now.

And his location, he thought dazedly. He lay on the grass near a pine copse, beneath the open sky, and a faint intimation of light in the east said dawn was coming. Vines bound his limbs, curled around his shoulders and waist, and had just settled into a comfortable position about his neck. Harry shook his head. _Vines. Why did she bring me to a patch of vines? _

_If, of course, it was Henrietta who did this._

He felt almost ready to meet anyone else who could have abducted him, though. For one thing, destroying someone evil would have felt good. And for another, he had endured all the grief and pain and fear that he could for right now. His brain floated in a haze of numbness, and he saw no more visions. He was not sure whether Voldemort had ceased to torture Connor, or whether his magic had shut down the connection.

_Why would she have taken me? Why would she have brought me here?_ Harry was sure he had never been here before, and it was a very long way from any safehouse he knew of. Perhaps it was a place special to Henrietta, but she could have mentioned it to him, and he would have traveled there of his own free will, without her having to abduct him. Of course, that would have had to wait until Connor was rescued and at least partially healed, and perhaps she had not wanted to wait.

_But why?_ No matter how he thought upon it, worked upon it, his perplexity grew. He could remember Henrietta leaning over him now, putting pressure on a nerve in the side of his neck that drove him unconscious, but that got him no nearer to the truth of why she had done it.

Then a rustle sounded to the side, and Harry managed to turn his head against the pull of the vines to regard Henrietta. She wore a thick gown of some dark color—autumn brown, he thought, or deep red. She came close to him and stood over him, looking down with a faint smile.

"Why?" Harry whispered, since no other word occurred to him at the moment.

Henrietta gave him a smile as vast and tender as the sky, and then knelt next to his legs, running a hand over his arm. "Harry," she breathed. "Did you really think I was a _tame_ Slytherin?"

Harry shook his head, in denial and more confusion. "That doesn't answer the question of why you brought me here," he pointed out.

"You would never have lured Evan." Henrietta rose to her feet and looked to the north, and soft as her voice was, Harry had the impression that she was speaking mostly to herself. "He has no reason to come to you, no reason to bring the Cup if he does. But for me—oh, yes. The hatred will pull him. I told him once what happens to Dark wizards and witches who hate each other as much as we do. He didn't believe me, but he still has no choice save to act on it." Her hand smoothed her dress with a small, repetitive, hypnotic motion.

"Does this have something to do with why we couldn't summon him with that rune circle?" Harry demanded. He could feel his magic building up under his skin, though as yet the numbness prevailed, and he could not bring himself to actually attack Henrietta. "Did you interfere? Meddle with some of the runes so that they wouldn't do what they were supposed to do?"

Henrietta's blink was cat-like. "No," she said. "But I suspected what had happened when you told me of the spell's response. During my last meeting with Evan, he was different. The shard of Voldemort's soul has migrated out of the Horcrux, I think, and possessed him. Thus, though his body still walks the world, Evan Rosier as you knew him has ceased to exist."

"Your _meeting _with him." Anger ate quietly at the numbness.

"Yes." Henrietta inclined her head. "I have been writing to him and meeting with him for some time, in order to get him fascinated enough that he would have no choice but to come to me when I wanted." She turned and checked the eastern horizon this time, apparently calculating the position of the sun. "And that time is now," she added, and drew her wand from her pocket. She raised her voice. "Evan!"

"You can't just take me," Harry hissed. "Do you know what's happening right now, what my brother is suffering?"

"Of course I do." Henrietta tapped her wand against her palm. "And I know, too, that you have no choice of saving him unless you destroy the last Horcrux, and I know that you should have paid more attention to the fifth stanza of the fourth prophecy." She turned to the north. "Evan!"

It took Harry a moment's struggle to recall that stanza, and when he did, he felt foolish for not understanding the matter at once.

_The fourth, in the old hatred curled_

_Has found its way to move and end._

_Beware, for when you most wish to hide from the world,_

_You'll be taken by one who's a friend._

That said, at least, that he could trust Henrietta's intentions. Maybe. Harry had more personal experience with the slipperiness of prophecies than anyone he knew.

"What makes you think I won't break free and prevent your sacrifice for the Horcrux?" he asked. The magic was bubbling to his face now. He could open his mouth and shoot something foul at Henrietta, or simply burst the vines.

"You should have recognized the plants by now, Harry, really." When Henrietta looked back at him, her face expressed slight disappointment. "Do you like them? I requested the seeds from Indigena's garden, via Lazuli. She was happy to send them to me."

Harry strained, and then realized the truth. He had felt the clutch of these vines before, on a Midwinter night more than two years ago, when he confronted Voldemort and Indigena in the graveyard near the Riddle house. These were the vines that Indigena had used to bind his wandless magic.

"I can't have you interfering," said Henrietta, in a voice of glacial calm. "But, at the same time, you need to be here after the Horcrux is destroyed, so that you can swallow the shard of soul and the magic that's binding it to Evan's body—or the Cup, if it flees there." Her smile gave a feral flash. "Strike with all your might, Harry, when I am done. For me."

She raised her voice again. "_Evan_!" It struck like thunder through the clearing, and Harry heard behind it the sweet thunder of the prophecy—and, more distantly, the soft, padded footsteps of a huge dog. He would not be surprised to see a black hound step from the copse of pines soon. "Come to me, if you are not a coward!" Henrietta yelled.

"I am here, Henrietta."

Harry jumped as best he could in the grip of the vines. A cloaked figure strode from the north, around the pines. He held a wand in his hand with more steadiness than Evan Rosier had ever gripped it. Harry snarled softly. It seemed that Henrietta's guess about the shard of Voldemort's soul taking Rosier over was correct, and knowing that a piece of the bastard was so near made him want to destroy it now.

He envisioned Rosier's body decaying, falling apart into the kind of sludge that Voldemort had briefly turned Connor's arm into.

His magic rose as far as the vines before it slammed back into his body, like a kitten striking a closed door full-force.

"Let me _go_, Henrietta!" he shouted, thrashing about. The vines curled a little tighter. Harry had no trouble feeling the rage this time.

"No," said Henrietta simply, and then she smiled, a smile so fierce that Harry lost his breath and recovered from the anger a moment. "This is my free will, vates, and you cannot prevent it. You should never have turned your back on me." She bowed her head, dipping into a half-curtsey. "You may dislike the title, but you have ever been my Lord. Farewell, Harry. _Morituri te salutant_," she added, and then turned and ran merrily away.

"Henrietta!" Harry shouted. "How do you plan to set me free from these vines if you die in the duel?"

She only flipped him a wave with one hand, her attention fixed on her opponent.

Harry went back to digging his heels into the ground. He could not use magic to tear the vines, but perhaps he could rip them by sheer force of physical strength.

Before him, Henrietta danced, in madness and hatred and love. Harry was not even aware when his struggles ebbed and he lay there gaping, content to watch her. There was no way that anyone could not have watched.

It was dawn, and Lady Death watched from the copse, and Henrietta whirled in the midst of a lovers' waltz.

* * *

Henrietta felt all other concerns fall away from her as she came forward, and halted, and bowed to Evan.

This was what she had been working towards for months. And now the moment was here, and she had no more elaborate plans to arrange, no letters to write that would fan the sparks of Evan's madness and keep him rushing towards her, no more commitments of sanity and soul to make that might end up costing her more than she gained. She had put herself at risk every time she wrote a letter, every time she went to meet him, every time she conversed with him as if they were equals.

But if she had not entered into this with her full heart, Evan would have known something was wrong, and he might have managed to pull back in time.

Not this time, not this time, not so, and Henrietta's heart was high and singing like a lark. She wished one were in flight above them, singing to make the music for their dance, their duel.

_Well, I can pretend that one is, and it will be less mad than many things Evan has been convinced of._

When she straightened from the bow, she saw the alien intelligence watching her through amused dark eyes. "And how do you plan to fight in that, my lady?" he asked, gesturing to her heavy robe.

"It is the traditional costume for such a duel," Henrietta replied, holding out her wand. She was not worried. The shard of the Dark Lord might be in control, yes, but if Evan, her Evan, were not still alive somewhere within that damaged and twisted mind, he would never have come to this summons. The fascination she had encouraged, the poetic madness, was all Evan's. "And I could ask the same of you." His robes were dirty and disgusting. It seemed that this last piece of Voldemort's soul didn't care any more about wild living or fine clothes than Evan had, or maybe the constant fight for control in his mind reduced his ability to take care of himself.

From above her came skylark song. Henrietta smiled slowly.

"I plan to destroy you," said that too-calm, too-sane voice. "You have caused me too much trouble." And he was drawing his wand, but it was Evan's wand, and Henrietta had faced it in the past and knew what it was capable of.

"Of course I have," she said, and stamped her foot, and then the whirling pace began.

The spells he fired at her were all offensive, not defensive. _Cogo. Crucio. Cremo. Adsulto cordis. Imperio. Avada Kedavra. _Spells in languages she had never heard and did not know the names of, but could well imagine the effects of, should they land. He never tried a Shield Charm. His manner said, plainly, that he would worry about that when she managed to land a blow.

Henrietta responded with defensive magic. _Protego. Haurio. _Incantations that increased the movements of her legs and the strength of her arms and somewhat compensated for the heavy robes. She wondered, distantly, that Evan, or Voldemort, or the mingling of the two that was in control of the body, had not thought she would use such spells. Of course she would. He seemed to have little notion of cheating, unless he was the one doing it.

She was sensitive to the rhythm and the pace behind the movements, and she increased the tempo, beat by beat, circle by circle. She kept trying to strike at an opening in his defenses, but he always closed it quickly and returned to the flowing motion. His incantations were coming faster and faster now, and most of them were nonverbal, odd rests of silence in between the shouted spells. Henrietta knew she had been extremely lucky to escape them so far.

If "luck" could be said to have anything to do with it, when a Dark wizard and Dark witch danced in a fated duel like this.

The pattern was only like that on his side, however, though Henrietta was sure that it was the only side he paid attention to. On her side, she hesitated in blocking the unfamiliar spells, and whirled aside from more and more of them. Then she stumbled, her foot catching in the robe, and he grazed her knee in a thin line, with a spell that should have done much more damage.

"First blood to me," he announced, sounding pleased about that.

"In this dance, only death counts," Henrietta snapped back, and returned to her pattern. Now she could see him sensing it, in the way he responded and the spells he chose if nothing else. She faltered every few rings, each time became a little more clumsy, and then a little more. Strong as mountains her resolve might be, but her body was a poor vehicle for it.

So her body said. So her mind would say, on the surface, should he possess the Legilimency of his embodied counterpart. So her full heart said, as she gave herself to this deception just as she had to the flirtation with Evan. The dance had to be perfect.

Down and down and down.

They danced and they danced and they danced, and Henrietta began to murmur under her breath and sing, scraps and fragments of the poetry she knew Evan had some reason to be familiar with, because he had believed the poets' parents to be Squibs or wizards or witches. Yeats. Dante Gabriel Rossetti. George Meredith. Algernon Charles Swinburne. Arthur Symons. Thomas Lovell Beddoes. All those who had walked sometimes in the strange and dark ways of love and death, Eros and Thanatos, the singers to them and their celebrants.

She watched awareness flare in his eyes, and his movements slow a bit, as her Evan's consciousness struggled to climb back to the surface. The Voldemort-shard had to stop fighting, sometimes, in order to slow him down. Henrietta did not want that to happen too much, because it would disrupt the pattern she had established, so she ceased to quote the poetry after a time.

Besides, she needed her breath too much for _breathing_ just then.

Sweat ran down her face and dried in the still-cool air. It might be the second day of spring, but the weather did not feel like it. The robe lifted and whirled around her thighs, and heat exploded outwards from her skin. Eyes watched Henrietta from the copse, and from behind her, where Harry lay entangled and enthralled among the vines. Overhead, the skylark sang.

And then came the moment, the point, the _time._

Henrietta began her movement in the turning point of the pattern when Evan was just beginning to launch his spell. She turned aside from him, and dropped to one knee, and the will that filled her mind was concerned not with defense or the battle, but love and death.

_Ave, domine! Morituri te salutant._

The spell she shot was not a defensive one, but a Severing Curse, cutting the vines and freeing Harry from them.

Evan, caught in the pattern, trapped in it, could not stop his own spell from flying, or change it to a different one.

Henrietta closed her eyes and tipped her head back as a steel arrow went through her heart. The music of the dance sounded in her ears as one great crash of chords and then went still.

Henrietta Bulstrode died laughing.

* * *

Harry knew the Unassailable Curse was broken. He knew it by the way Lady Death roared from behind him, the hungry cry of an enormous dog starving for meat. He knew it in the way Rosier's movements slowed for just a moment, as though a defense so much a part of him he hadn't noticed he was depending on it had fallen away.

He knew it in the way Henrietta sprawled on the ground, life freely given, a steel arrow sprouting from her chest, and the cry that had reached him and echoed in his mind—how? He did not know. Perhaps through the connection they still shared because of the Unbreakable Vows, perhaps only because he _knew_ what she would say as she died.

And he was free.

He rose to his feet, and called a wheel of diamond shards with hardly a thought. Evan Rosier was hurrying forward to kneel beside Henrietta. He picked up her head by her long curls and stared into her face as if he did not understand, then gave her a little experimental shake. He seemed to think the life was in her and would return if he only pulled enough.

Harry sent the revolving wheel straight at his head.

He looked up in the moment before it reached him, and the flying triangles of diamond shared off his jaw, sliced through his face under the nose, continued upwards at an angle and shaved off the top of his skull. His hair went flying. Brains drained like jelly down the sides of his face, and his body sprawled over Henrietta's, shorn at last of grace and poetry, tricked into death by a woman he may even have believed truly loved him.

Harry had sharp eyes, though, and did not let the momentum of Rosier's death distract him. He was looking for the small black scrap that flew pitifully away from the back of Rosier's skull a moment later, shrieking in a high, thin voice that made blood burst from his ears.

Harry roared wordlessly, and opened his _absorbere_ gift. The tunnel scooped up the shard of soul and crushed it utterly, closing around it like a fist. The shrieking rose higher, in fear that Harry enjoyed, and then went silent. Harry tucked and yanked it into him, and the explosion of magic that followed, which probably represented the power the piece of soul had used to bind itself to Rosier's body.

The moment he finished swallowing, a ragged bay made the copse of pines shake, and the silver dogs-head emblem in Harry's left palm burned cold as deep sea ice.

Then there was silence, and he sagged to his knees and began to laugh, and to cry. Snot dribbled down his face from his nose, and his eyes were swollen in moments from the tears, and his throat hurt as much from the laughter as it earlier had from the screaming. He tried to recover, but he couldn't even _think_ until he spat the churning emotions out.

And then he was on his feet, as he realized what the destruction of the last part of Voldemort's soul meant.

He could free his brother. He could confront Voldemort. He would go back to Silver-Mirror to inform Draco and Snape of what had happened, but then he was on his way to kill the snake-faced bastard.

He reached out to Voldemort, through their link, and said in a voice like a snapping of steel chains, _I am ready. Tell me where you are._

The voice that returned his communication was more amused than he had ever heard it, which could only mean, Harry thought, that he hadn't sensed the destruction of the last piece of his soul. _In the place where it began, and the place where it will end. I am sure that you can find it. My heir._

That was all he said, but Harry found, thinking about it carefully, that he _did_ know. Where it began.

Voldemort was under Godric's Hollow.

With firm steps, Harry crossed to Henrietta's body, and bent his head to kiss her cold lips. Then he turned and leaped for Silver-Mirror.

_Yes, where it began. And where it will end._

_I am coming, Voldemort—for my brother's life, and for your death._


	95. All the Joy Before Death

The title of this chapter (along with the next two) comes from Swinburne's "Hymn to Proserpine": "Breasts more soft than a dove's, that tremble with tenderer breath;/ And all the wings of the Loves, and all the joy before death;/ All the feet of the hours that sound as a single lyre,/ Dropped and deep in the flowers, with strings that flicker like fire."

**Chapter Seventy-Seven: All the Joy Before Death**

Connor had known a simulacrum of peace before some hours before he felt someone pressing on the outer shell of his mind. He waited for a moment, and the person began to tow the scattered pieces of his sanity towards the center. He knew he would be sane again if they came back together, though it had been long enough now that "sanity" was a word and not a concept to him.

But he could still remember pain. And he knew that he did not want to go back.

He struggled and kicked. He didn't know if his body echoed his movements, or if they were only in his mind; he had lost track of his body, too. He did know that he was crying, and whether that was with or without sound, he gave as much power to his voice as to his movements. He was tired. He had ceased to care about dignity or pride or honor, which were words like "sanity" at this point. He knew only that he wanted to go to sleep, or drift here in the blackness, and never wake up again. That was all he wished for himself.

But the force was relentless. He vaguely remembered that it had been relentless in forcing pain on him, too.

And then he was back together, and he opened his mouth and _screamed._ At once, a pale hand clamped over his lips, and a voice murmured into his ear, "I will be displeased if you cry out. You would not like to displease me, would you?"

Connor shut his eyes. He remembered, now—remembered how Voldemort had captured him, and what he'd used him for. His stomach contracted in a dry heave, but that had become a useless reflex by now. Nothing could _change_ what he'd done. He could not go back to being what he had been, and it was ten to one whether Harry would ever look at him with anything but pity again, or whether Parvati would welcome him to her bed.

"You are not healed," Voldemort whispered into his ear. "I do not need _that_ from you. But you are sane again. So many times as you rupture, that many times I will bring you back. Legilimency is the art of dominating the mind." He was silent for a long moment, and his fingers stroked Connor's cheek like the touch of mildew or spiderwebs. Connor moaned a little. He had that much strength left.

And then Voldemort's hand drifted back, and he smiled at Connor. His front teeth resembled a viper's fangs. Connor wondered if that was a new modification, or just a trait he had never noticed before. It wasn't like he had come face-to-face with the Dark Lord that often.

_No, that's Harry's job._

Sickness roiled through Connor, that he could be so close to his enemy and be so useless, but he didn't show it. He just watched Voldemort, and after a moment Voldemort turned away from him and held up his hand. An invisible rope yanked Connor into the air and tugged him after Voldemort as he paced towards the burrow's entrance. Connor watched shadows move along with them, the currents of the Dark Lord's power.

"Come," Voldemort whispered. "Let us prepare to welcome your brother."

* * *

Harry had expected questions from Snape and Draco when he appeared. It seemed, though, that the force with which he Apparated in shut them up. That, and the magic churning around him, he had to concede. Since he had swallowed the latest burst of the magic that bound the soul shard to Voldemort's body, he had become even stronger.

_Strong enough to take the bastard down?_

_Yes._

He looked at Snape, who stood with a potions vial in one hand as though he had intended to force it down Harry's throat and now could not, and at Draco, whose mouth was open, and said, calmly, "Henrietta is dead. She sacrificed herself for the final Horcrux, and I destroyed Evan Rosier, whose body it hid in, and swallowed the soul-piece itself. She had brought me there so that I could be close when the Horcrux was vulnerable, but not interfere with the sacrifice. It is quite possible that we may owe the salvation of our world to her. And now I can kill Voldemort, and I know where he is, since he foolishly chose to reveal his hiding place to me. Come with me, both of you. You should be there to see it happen."

Snape's fingers clenched so hard around the potions vial that Harry thought it would shatter. Draco made a hungry sound and took three steps across the floor of the bedroom, seizing his shoulders and bringing Harry's mouth to his. Harry shared an open-mouthed kiss with him for a moment, then pulled back and bit down as hard as he could at Draco's lower lip. Draco cried out, but when he pulled back from Harry, he looked far more dazed than upset.

"Don't do that again," he whispered, "unless you want to finish what you've started before we go and find your brother."

"Not now," said Harry, a dark fire growing within him and changing his voice to something he scarcely recognized. "But later? Oh, yes, Draco. I think we can."

The dark fire surged up, filling him, sweeping every single limb with a spike of obsidian in which frozen lava glittered. Harry resisted the urge to tip back his head and howl like a werewolf, because he thought that would upset Snape, but he did lift his lip to show his teeth and snarl a little.

_I am going to kill him. He doesn't know that we took his last Horcrux from him, and he is ready to die._

* * *

Harry Apparated both Draco and Snape with him to Godric's Hollow, because he was the only one who knew what the house was liable to look like now. And, indeed, when they landed on the hill next to it, he could see that not much had changed. The shattered walls where he and his brother, their parents and Sirius and Remus, had once dwelled and played and loved gaped at the sky still, and the ground rolled up to meet them at the edge of a broken wall. The only visible change was a softly blossoming garden on one ridge, which had probably been Indigena's. Of course, Voldemort had had no need to repair the house for himself. He had dug an underground sanctuary, like the serpent he was.

Harry knew without being told that the chamber where Voldemort kept his brother would be under the bedroom where he and Connor had slept as children, the room where Voldemort had entered to make Harry his magical heir and mark both him and Connor with their scars. The place where it all began.

For a moment, the edge of a thought about that night teased Harry, trying to connect with something else in his brain. But it flared and vanished when he saw Voldemort striding out to meet him, an incongruous sight, like a strutting carrion crow, beneath the mild gray sky of a day in March. Something floated behind him, and paused just inside the entrance to the burrow. Harry's heart seized up. That was Connor.

But so angry was he that he did not have to think about what he would do first, or pause and gape at Connor, or call his brother's name. He had come to do one thing, and one thing only. And Voldemort halted and stood there, smiling at him, so confident of his own invulnerability, so secure in the idea that Harry had not destroyed his last Horcrux and the Hufflepuff Cup was still in Rosier's possession.

Harry had sometimes pictured giving a grand speech when he defeated Voldemort, asking him if he was ready to die.

But, given what he had done to Connor and how badly Harry wanted to take his brother _away_ from there, he found he had no heart for an announcement. He didn't pause to watch Voldemort's gleeful glances at Snape and Draco, either. He simply lifted a hand and spoke the spell he could finally speak, the spell he had used once before in the Chamber of Secrets and had no luck with, waiting for the moment when Voldemort's face changed from glee to panic.

"_Avada Kedavra._"

The green light filled the air around his palm, and then flashed away, traveling so fast that Harry wondered if Voldemort's face would have _time_ to change expression before it reached him.

The answer seemed to be no, because his expression was the same when the green light reached him.

The beam struck him—

And faded away.

Voldemort began to laugh.

Harry took a step back. Ground and air danced around him, sky and earth, and he could not keep his footing, could not cry out his brother's name or a plea against the unfairness of the universe, could not _breathe._

"No," he said, or thought he said. Or perhaps Draco or Snape said it. Or perhaps Connor called it, in a voice like a seagull's. The roar of the sea seemed to overwhelm Harry's ears for a moment, and he nearly did not hear the words Voldemort was speaking to him.

"What will you never do, Harry?" he said softly. "_Never_ do? Killing me would be very easy. But you cannot complete the harvest of my soul. You have not paid enough attention to the beginning, and that will take the end away from you. You have not found the third. You do not _know_." Deep triumph flashed in his eyes.

And then his magic began to rise, wave on wave, roaring like the sea itself, challenging Harry, tireless depths of darkness. Harry knew he could not fight it, not yet, not now, and not with Snape and Draco vulnerable behind him.

He went on staring, though, unable to move, because he did not—

And then he _understood_.

His scream ripped the air as he Apparated himself, Snape, and Draco away, and Voldemort's laughter followed him, deep and mocking.

_What will you never do, Harry?_

* * *

The Lord Voldemort had seen despair in his heir's eyes before he Apparated.

For the first time in seventeen years, he was content.


	96. Standing, Look to the End

The title of this chapter, likewise, comes from "Hymn to Proserpine": "Though all men abase them before you in spirit, and all knees bend,/ I kneel not neither adore you, but standing, look to the end."

And now, the monster under the bed.

**Chapter Seventy-Eight: Standing, Look to the End**

The moment he landed back in his bedroom at Silver-Mirror with Draco and Snape, Harry broke from them. He headed for the library; they could think that he was studying summoning spells or a way to kill a Dark Lord who was immortal, if they wanted. At the moment, he did not care.

He slammed the door behind him with magic, and put locking and warding spells around it that Jing-Xi would have had trouble getting through. Then he bowed his head and wrapped it in his arms as he dropped to the floor. Short, muffled screams burst from his mouth, cries of pain he could no more stifle than he could have grown wings and flown to the moon.

Connor was the last Horcrux.

Chains of understanding, long buried beneath the earth of his mind, burst into being, ripping his view of Voldemort and his brother up and setting the pieces down in a new, jagged pattern. He could not doubt his conclusion. It made too much sense.

Piece after piece after piece tumbled into place in his mind with a click and a clack and a thunk like fire.

Lady Death had shown the number seven to Regulus when he asked after Horcruxes. Regulus had assumed it meant six Horcruxes and one piece left for Voldemort—seven shards of soul.

_"Death showed me the number seven. That makes sense. Seven is a magically powerful number. He split his soul into seven shards- one each for six Horcruxes, and one for himself."_

Oh, yes, it made sense, Harry thought, with his understanding eating him like acid. But it had only been an _assumption. _It could as easily have meant seven Horcruxes, but Regulus had not interpreted it that way, and everyone else, guided by the way he thought, hadn't interpreted it like that, either.

The tide of comprehension and bitterness swept him up and on.

The bird had tried to show Harry the locations of Horcruxes, and Lady Death had done the same thing for Regulus. One of them was the desk that had contained the Ravenclaw wand, one the burrow where at the time Voldemort had kept the Hufflepuff Cup, one the shack where Slytherin's shade and the ring had waited, and one—

One had been Hogwarts.

Where, at the time, both the Sword of Gryffindor _and_ Connor had been.

Harry was crying hard enough that the skin around his eyes felt stretched and swollen, but he could not stop, either weeping or thinking. More and more came springing out of the darkness like a clawed creature, dragging the past into the harsh and unforgiving light, making sense of Voldemort's actions in a way that no other explanation could have.

The Stone had said that there was a place in Harry's aura for a third person, someone connected to both him and Voldemort. And Harry, in going through the Imbolc ritual and reliving in his alternate world the night when Voldemort had come to Godric's Hollow, had seen the Killing Curses flash, connecting him, Voldemort, and Connor in a bent triangle. That was the idea that had almost managed to scratch its way into his head when he was at the house a few minutes ago.

A triangle. The third. Someone else bound to this endless turning of soul and magic, by his blood bond to Harry and the fact that Voldemort had lodged a shard of soul behind Connor's scar.

The part of Harry's mind that tried to deny reality asked frantically, _But wouldn't we have sensed something amiss with Connor? Wouldn't Voldemort's evil have manifested itself in him somehow? How can he be the Horcrux then? The others all felt evil._

Harry began to laugh bitterly, and he could not stop. Connor's compulsion gift. Where had it come from? It could be inherited, but neither Lily nor James had had much evidence of it in their family line.

But Voldemort was a compeller.

Harry had once half-entertained the idea that Connor was Voldemort's magical heir, too, only taking the one magical gift that Harry himself did not bear. But, yes, it could have been the shard of soul stirring in Connor, expressing its evil the only way it knew how. Merlin knew it had certainly reacted strongly to the tutelage of Sirius, and especially Voldemort in Sirius's body, and Tom Riddle, when he vanished into Connor's head in second year, had been able to wield it like a veritable sword. If the connection between them was not Connor being Voldemort's magical heir—and surely he would have pulled on the Dark Lord's magic, too, if that was the case—then what _was_ it? A Horcrux connection would serve.

Tom Riddle.

Harry closed his eyes and fell into the memory of the Chamber. The silent self reared again above the younger Dark Lord, having frozen Connor into a statue, and Harry could hear the words he spoke then.

"_Not him. Never him. It was _you, _it must have been, and the nature of our connection—_"

That had been the moment when Riddle discovered that Harry was the Boy-Who-Lived; he had assumed before that that Connor was, and that he could only use Harry's scar at all because of Harry's connection to Connor. Harry had assumed that "the nature of our connection" referred to that stunning moment, too late, when Riddle recognized his true enemy.

But what if it had meant that he recognized Connor as a Horcrux, and only in that moment, too late to do anything about it?

Tom Riddle had been a rather immature and thoughtless shard of the Dark Lord's soul, Harry thought, with a speed and clarity that astonished him. _Click_ and _clack_ and _thunk_ went the pieces of his mind.

The one they had faced at the end of third year had been an older version of Voldemort, cannier and more experienced. And he had threatened to kill Draco and Snape, had delighted in describing to Harry throughout the corrupted justice ritual how he would torture them.

He had said he would keep Connor alive.

"_Why, I have been training him these past three months. It would be a shame to let such a well-trained and natural compeller go to waste. _Imperio _should remove any obstinate moral fixations he has, and then I have a follower skilled in doing Dark magic._"

Yes. A follower with a piece of himself inside him. Harry wondered if Voldemort had shivered with delight and irony when he called Connor a natural compeller.

_Click_ sang the puzzle pieces.

Connor had flared with white light at the end of their first year, when Voldemort attacked him in Quirrell's body. Harry had thought it was his natural purity that saved him. Snape had assumed it was Harry's love. But while a willing sacrifice might very well create such a protection, Harry had not given up his life. He had lain there helpless while Quirrell attacked Connor.

And then there had been the white light that flared around Connor when the shard of Tom Riddle tried to attack him in McGonagall's office.

Harry had not been able to find information like this, because books on Horcruxes were so rare, but he wondered if it would be impossible for two shards of a soul to destroy each other, for Horcrux to be wielded against Horcrux, and if there was a book somewhere that described the reaction when that nearly happened as a flare of white, shadowless, pure light.

_Clack_ sang the puzzle pieces.

Voldemort—the piece of Voldemort Harry had faced again and again, the man holding his brother captive now—must have known what Connor was from that confrontation at the end of first year. After that, he had not tried to kill him.

Oh, he had endangered his life. He had sent Rabastan to cast the Severing Curse at him during the Second Task of the Triwizard Tournament. But he could easily have ordered his follower to use the Killing Curse, if Connor's life wasn't important to him, if he wanted to bring despair to and break Harry.

He had used the spell during their fifth year that would have locked Connor in a dreaming coma, unable to come out unless a Marked Death Eater felt genuine willingness to help him, but that spell would not have killed him.

Connor had run into the midst of an attacking vampire hive, but none of them had attacked him.

When Voldemort tested his control over Evan Rosier by having him lure Connor out of Hogwarts during their sixth year and to Hawthorn's house, Indigena Yaxley had appeared in time to defend Connor and prevent Rosier from killing him—and Harry was willing to bet Indigena Yaxley knew all about the Horcruxes.

And Voldemort had Connor now, torturing him endlessly, but always healing him.

_Thunk_, sang the puzzle pieces, and rolled to a stop.

_What will you never do, Harry?_

_Kill my brother, _he answered Voldemort, and lifted his head, eyes dry and staring into the distance.

He remembered the long incantation Voldemort had cast over Connor early on in the torture session, before Snape could force the Dreamless Sleep down his throat. Harry had not recognized the spell, and had discounted it when it appeared to have no immediate effect, more concerned with the other things that Voldemort did to Connor in the name of hurting him. But he would wager, now, that the spell was an Unassailable Curse, insuring that his last Horcrux could not be destroyed without a willing sacrifice. Even if Harry had the strength of will to kill his brother, someone else would still have to die to make it possible.

It was no wonder that Voldemort was so confident. Harry might be able to delay going to Connor, for a little while, because Draco had asked him to.

He could never kill him, any more than he could kill Draco.

The world might fall under the reign of darkness, and still Harry could not willingly harm him.

_Voldemort has—_

And then, he stopped. All the breath rushed out of his lungs, as it had yesterday when he first struggled under the pain of what was happening to Connor, and he stared, while the puzzle pieces shifted twice and reoriented into a new pattern.

Voldemort had trapped him with what he would never do.

But he was notoriously bad at estimating what Harry _would_ do.

And there was a way. Small and nimble, creeping around the edges of what was possible and permissible, but there _was_ a way to destroy the Horcrux and yet not have to kill his brother.

It would even fulfill the prophecies.

Harry wore a small smile that he knew held no joy. He rose to his feet and gave a rippling stretch, arms over his head, and a small nod. He could do this. He would do this. He would tell Snape and Draco he knew why Voldemort could not be killed, and tie it to the prophecy. The prophecy mandated that an elder stand at his right shoulder, didn't it? But it had to be a different elder each time, and Snape and Draco had already both fulfilled the role once, with Falco and Dumbledore respectively. Harry could not kill Voldemort until he brought along someone else who loved him. Peter would do.

It sounded perfect. It sounded beautiful.

It was a lie.

But they would not know that.

Harry let out a soft breath, and went to unlock the door and comfort his father and lover, who were no doubt frantic. He would explain the need to wait a while before they left, to brew some rather specialized healing potions for Connor. And it was true that his brother would probably die if they simply tried to remove him from Voldemort's lair.

He didn't think he could have done this, had his Occlumency pools still been in place. He would have considered things too objectively. But his emotions were free now, and Harry knew exactly the level of guilt he could live with.

_I'll make myself human past the doubt, _he told the prophecy echoing in his head. _Don't you worry about that._

The dogs-head in his left palm burned softly, as if in response, or promise.


	97. Intermission: Brewing

**Intermission: Brewing**

_Three hippogriff feathers, shredded into three parts each._

Cut and cut and cut, and the hippogriff feathers existed. Toss them into the potion. Watch them float, drift across the surface, while a red stone cut into his palm and he forced all the thoughts of what he wanted done into it. The stone grew warm with magic, and he had to concentrate to stop it from exploding.

_Impart the stone with your magical essence._

Done, and _toss_, and the potion spat steam the color of lava and foamed and danced against the cauldron. Put up a ward around the cauldron, _just_ in case it spilled. It could not spill, not now. Contain it. Brew it. Remember the discipline Snape had taught him, embedded in breaths and body.

_The chips of stone must be identical._

They were. Oh, they were. Twin stones for twins. Cradle it tight, think of what he wanted to do, and watch the bubbles leap.

_Leap_, and the potion ate of the stone, and settled back into place as if thinking. Its bubbles floated above the surface now. Where was the largest one? _There_, and it tasted of him and fell back into the cauldron with a faint pop when he punctured it with one finger.

_The potion must have the breath of the body._

Lean in. Blow. The potion singing to him, singing like a little boy finding frogs in a pond on a spring morning. Changing color, silver now, smug silver, languid silver, silver of light that defended one Horcrux from another.

_Watch for the maelstrom. It must have one of the brewer's hairs_.

Pluck it forth, the smallest pain he had endured that day. Watch. There was the whirlpool! And in the hair went, and the potion appeared to turn upside-down, a smooth silver turtle shell extending above the rim of the cauldron.

_The potion must taste one more time of skin and sweat._

A finger in. The dome trembled, and buckled, and then slid apart, halving itself, petals reaching out like a flower's. Then it settled, and he could move it into the vial waiting for it. Couldn't have two; they would suspect something. But he could, and did, place a red line of magic inside the vial, invisible unless one looked closely, dividing exactly half from exactly half.

Done.


	98. And Death Is a Sleep

And another title from "Hymn to Proserpine," the concluding lines: "So long I endure, no longer; and laugh not again, neither weep./ For there is no God found stronger than death; and death is a sleep."

This is the chapter I've been envisioning since I started writing the very first story.

Let's take it home.

**Chapter Seventy-Nine: And Death Is a Sleep**

Draco did not really like the look in Harry's eyes when he came out of the impromptu potions lab Snape had constructed on the second floor of Silver-Mirror. His face was—not sane. And he slipped a vial into his robe pocket as Draco watched, a vial full of a silver potion that looked familiar. Draco frowned. _That's not Snape's Imperius potion, is it? He can't be planning on using that, can he?_

And then he dismissed the idea, because Harry was _vates_, and he would never use compulsion like that, whether it was in the form of a curse, the compulsion gift, or a potion. And Harry was smiling at him, his eyes so bright that Draco could almost pretend he was all there.

Harry would need healing in the wake of what had happened, of course, just as Connor did. But now they were going to defeat the Dark Lord.

Draco could hardly think of it; his thoughts charged up to the idea and then stopped as if at a wall. He had lived all his life under the shadow of the Dark Lord; the tales of him were the first he could remember Lucius whispering about, rather than simply telling, and that had increased the attraction of them to a child greedy for secrets. Draco had lived with the notions that he would serve him, that his father would serve him, and that he would fight Voldemort all along.

And now, he was going to be _destroyed?_

It seemed too real to be believed.

Sane or not, Harry was taking them along: Peter, Draco, and Snape. The others had been told enough to content them, but Harry had very firmly refused to take anyone else. Draco actually understood that, this time. Peter was necessary to the prophecy, and he and Snape could not bear to be parted from Harry, but taking too many people would just put them all in danger. They could not hope to overcome Voldemort by strength of magic. It needed Harry and Peter and the prophecy. And if Harry wanted to brew healing potions for Connor, the way he had done, then that was his right. At least, if Voldemort used his dying moments to inflict some horrible strike on Connor, then he was much less likely to die with Harry's healing potions right there.

Draco wondered what he should say to his brother-in-law when he saw him again, and then shrugged. He would find the right thing in the moment when it happened, and not before.

A hand smoothed over his arm, and he looked up into Harry's face. "Ready?" Harry asked.

Draco nodded. "It's going to be strange when we get out of there," he said, and tried to laugh. "Who do you think is going to react worse to the news of Voldemort's disappearance? All those people who still secretly sympathized with the Death Eaters? Or the Light wizards who won't have an enemy to fight any more?"

"Probably the Pact," said Harry, and Draco swallowed what he'd meant to say next, because, good Merlin, Harry's eyes were green. "I love you, Draco."

"I love you, too," Draco responded, wondering what had brought this suddenly on.

Harry leaned forward and kissed him. It was the softest, gentlest, most passionate kiss Draco could ever remember them sharing. He was still staring at Harry when his partner pulled away, but Harry had turned to talk to Snape and Peter, and didn't seem to notice.

_I hope there are more kisses like that in our future, _Draco decided, dazedly. _I want them._

He would consider, later, that it had been meant as a way to say goodbye.

* * *

Emotions raced through Harry's head, colliding with the sides of his skull, softening the world around him, making him see everything through his haze. It was rather like his dream of the sea, where there had been a black glass box that contained him and the water, and the grief had pounded outside. Outside him, now, were all the people who thought differently than he did, and doubtless would tell him he was mad.

Inside were him, and his selfishness.

Slytherins were selfish. It was one of the defining traits of the House, at least according to the wild Dark when it had accepted Draco's Declaration. And that was the reason Harry had been Sorted there in first year, he now believed: he really hadn't cared about anything but serving Connor, which, though it was an unselfish end in itself, involved him in a rather suffocating and constricted world as far as people other than his brother went.

_As it began, so it ends._

In more than one way, Harry thought, while they landed on the edge of the ruined wall containing Godric's Hollow. He had wrapped all of them in the _Extabesco plene,_ so that Voldemort's senses and magic could not detect them. They could, however, still see and otherwise sense each other.

In truth, he did not believe they needed it. He believed that Voldemort would have let Harry walk openly into the burrow and come to his brother, because Voldemort did not think Harry would have the strength to kill Connor. It _was_ true that Harry might have brought along someone intended as a willing sacrifice—he glanced sideways at Peter—and that could break the Unassailable Curse Voldemort had cast on Connor. But then there would still be the problem of getting the shard of soul out of Connor's body.

The example of Evan Rosier suggested that a shard embedded in a living body would not leave it, had no reason to leave it, unless that body was killed. They preferred bodies to objects. Harry could ask Peter to die, but he would still have had to kill his brother to make the shard of soul fly, and that he would not do, would never do.

It was too bad that Voldemort underestimated him in other ways, Harry thought, clinically detached. Really too bad.

His hand brushed against the vial of Switching Potion in his pocket as they walked towards the entrance of the burrow. Harry could feel wards plucking at his skin, but it was easy enough to shunt them aside. They were confused, anyway, by the distinct similarity between his magic and Voldemort's. Soon enough they stood staring down into the vast hole in the dirt. Harry could see steps if he squinted, and make out footprints in them. He wondered whose footprints they were. Voldemort's alone? Indigena's? Had Connor walked here?

_You will walk up them, brother. You will walk away. I have sacrificed too much already. I can be selfish too, and with my emotions free, it's so much easier to be that way, to be human. I'm tired. I don't want to see more sacrifices. I don't want to see more people die, and I can't see you die, and I can't see Draco die, or Snape, or Peter, or anyone else._

Now and then, like a muffled thump against the glass from the part of him that was still sane, came a reminder that he was a bit mad. A _bit_, Harry corrected himself. He had a plan. It was a good one.

"Shall we descend?" Draco asked at last, when they'd stood there for some minutes in uncomfortable silence.

Harry nodded. "I'm not sure where Connor is, or Voldemort," he lied. He knew Connor would be slightly to the north of them, under the ruined bedroom where they'd both been marked, and he could feel Voldemort at the end of the tunnel of magic stretching between them, in a burrow that squatted to the west and south. "We should go down and feel for them. Maybe I can sense something then."

He would have to be careful, he thought, as he descended the stairs, shielding Draco, Snape, and Peter. Depending on the conformation of the tunnel, he might have to take drastic measures to keep them from following him.

The healing potions in his pocket bumped against his ribs, _clink, clack, rattle_, and the Switching Potion, larger and more majestic than they were, seemed to be breathing. Harry wondered if such perceptions were part of his madness. He didn't much care if they were. His emotions were free now, he was human, and that was what the prophecy and all the people around him had wanted, wasn't it?

As it turned out, no drastic measures were needed. The tunnel in front of them split two ways, one leading to the room where Harry knew Connor lay, the other turning into an alcove which Voldemort had probably used for storage at some point. Harry smiled slightly, and his magic began to stir around him. He could feel Voldemort watching him, confident, curious to see what he would do.

_You are going to die, _Harry thought, but quietly, since he didn't know what Voldemort might be able to pick up with Legilimency.

Abruptly, he stiffened and stared into the alcove, as if he saw something. It worked for two of them. Snape and Peter both stepped forwards into it, wands drawn. Draco stayed by his shoulder.

_He was always the difficult one, _Harry thought with fond exasperation, remembering the child who had clung to his side like a burr in his first year to prevent him from associating with Gryffindors. He lifted a hand, and his magic responded to his order, howling around Draco as a wind and giving him a gentle but firm shove after Peter and Snape.

Draco stared at him. They all stared at him.

"I'm sorry," Harry said quietly. "I love you. Goodbye."

And then he conjured a stone wall across the front of the alcove, sealing it off. Air could flow under it and around the sides, so they wouldn't suffocate, but there was no way for so much as a finger to fit through a crack. Harry then carefully cast an Unassailable Curse on the wall. Only a Light wizard, or the Light itself, would be able to surpass it, crack the wall, and let the three of them out—and it couldn't be someone on the inside, which meant Peter couldn't tear it down. That effectively protected them from Voldemort, who was Dark in every sense of the word. Harry was confident that Connor himself, or someone else who could decipher the notes he'd left in his bedroom on a half-hidden scrap of paper, would come eventually and let them out.

Draco's fist hit the wall. "_Harry_," he said, with so much misery in his voice that Harry had to close his eyes for a moment. "What in Merlin's name do you think you're doing?"

"Connor's the final Horcrux," Harry said calmly. "And I don't intend to let him die. I'm going to take care of that."

Shocked silence. Harry turned up the tunnel that led to his brother.

"_Harry_," Peter said.

"Harry!" Snape called.

Draco's response was a wordless wail.

Harry set his sights forward, and trotted. He'd done everything for them that he could. He had to do something for his brother now, and for himself.

The Switching Potion bumped and bumped and bumped against him, at least until he gripped the vial to hold it still and make sure it wouldn't break.

* * *

Harry was indeed glad that he'd brought the healing potions when he saw his brother. Connor lay on the dirt without a chain or rope—speaking further to Voldemort's scornful confidence, that Harry would never destroy his brother—but he had fingers still badly broken and harshly reset, and his limbs twitched in small, regular convulsions. Harry knelt down beside him, dropped the _Extabesco plene,_ and smoothed a hand over his brow, over the scar that concealed the Horcrux. Connor shivered and opened his eyes.

The tears in his eyes said clearly that he thought he was seeing a dream. "Harry?" he whispered.

"Here, brother." Harry had never known that his own voice could sound so calm, so steady. He tipped a few of the healing potions down Connor's throat, until his breathing eased and he could sit up. Connor leaned against the dirt wall. Harry put the rest of the healing potions carefully within his reach, and then drew out the Switching Potion. The red line in the middle separated half from half, and he nodded and uncorked the vial.

"Harry?" Connor whispered. "What are you doing?"

Harry ignored him for the moment. Now was not the time to let Connor talk him out of anything. He would explain once he was done, because his twin deserved to hear it, but not before.

He drank half of the potion, down to the red line.

The effect was immediate, though very odd—not at all like the other times he had used it. Then again, he'd never been the one to whom the dreams or knowledge was transferred. He felt another tunnel open across his brow, this one connecting his scar to Connor's, and a mighty _yank_ made his head bob forward. Then his mind filled with the heavy sense that he could compel people if he wanted to. Harry let out a slow breath. That, of course, was not a true compulsion gift, but just the form that this shard of Tom Riddle's soul had taken.

"Harry?" Connor repeated, insistently.

Harry looked up at him, and smiled as gently as he could under the circumstances. He had the feeling that it was more exhausted than tender. "You were a Horcrux, Connor," he said quietly. "That's why I couldn't kill Voldemort, why he prevented his Death Eaters from killing you, and why he took you. It happened that night he came hunting us in Godric's Hollow. A shard of soul became embedded in you."

Connor stared at him with an open mouth, then whispered, "_How_?"

Harry shrugged. His head really did feel heavier. "Ask the prophecy. Ask the odd combination of magic going on in the room that night. My guess is that the Killing Curse he cast at you, and which got interrupted by my rebounded one, split his soul again, using _him_ as both the murder victim and the source of the shard, and then the shard took the only available path it could and flew into you."

Connor swallowed several times, then said, "But that means—that means—" He stopped.

"It _did_," Harry corrected him, taking pity. He would not make Connor say that he would have to die for the safety of the world. "I used the Switching Potion to transfer the Horcrux into myself."

More silence. Harry thought it had been perhaps two minutes since he took the Potion now.

"_Why_?" Connor said, both a demand and a rebuke at once.

"Because I'm so damn tired of sacrifices." Harry yawned. He would wait just a few more minutes, to say farewell to his twin and make sure that he understood the truth and what he needed to do, and then he would kill himself. He was looking forward to the sleep that awaited him. Perhaps there would be sounds of the sea, or beloved voices, but he would prefer soundless oblivion. "I couldn't bear to see you die. Voldemort knows it. Even if I could bear to stand by and watch, say, Peter sacrifice himself to break the Unassailable Curse on you, we would still have to destroy your body to get the shard out so I could swallow it. I couldn't kill you. But I can, quite willingly and happily, die. That will be the willing sacrifice that breaks the Curse, _and_ the one that destroys the body so that the shard will have to flee."

"And what if the shard just possesses me?" Connor demanded tensely. "I was its home for seventeen years." He shuddered as if he had swallowed something foul-tasting.

Harry laughed softly. "That won't happen, Connor. When I die, my magic is going to snap right back to Voldemort. The shard will go with it, I think, drawn along by the sheer pull. Then Voldemort will have two pieces of his soul in the same body again, but no more Horcruxes. He can be killed.' He lifted his head. The air was filling with sweet thunder. "The prophecy will insure it," he added. "You're the younger now, Connor, and you can kill Voldemort just like I could have. He's a powerful wizard, but he'll be mortal in a few moments. A successful Killing Curse will slay him just like anyone else."

The prophecy, somewhat to Harry's surprise, didn't continue congealing. It hung in the air like a miasma instead, as if waiting for something. Harry frowned at a corner where it seemed strongest, wondering what it wanted.

"You _think_," Connor said, voice like a whiplash. "What premise is that to hang the safety of the world on, Harry?"

"When otherwise we would have no chance at all? A very good one." Harry started to lie down.

"What about everyone who needs you?" Connor demanded. "The magical creatures? Draco? Snape? Me?"

"I've done what I can for them," said Harry, and lowered his head to rest on his hands. "Now I've run up against something I can't do. It's just like asking me to kill Draco to save the world. I can't change what I am. But I can do this, Connor." He sighed. His eyes wanted to droop shut, but he had a few more things to say first. "I will miss you. But I can't go on now. I've finally learned to be human, just like the prophecy said."

_Prophecies, inevitably, run out_, sang the line in his mind.

Connor was staring at him. His chest heaved as if he were struggling for air, but no sound escaped his mouth. His eyes were bright and very hollow.

"Snape, Peter, and Draco are trapped behind a wall down the corridor that only a Light wizard can break," Harry said. "Your wand is in my robe pocket. I—"

Connor lunged.

Harry reared backwards instinctively, but it wasn't him Connor was going for. He realized what it was too late.

Connor snatched the vial of Switching Potion, and gulped down the second half.

Harry didn't know the voice with which he screamed. The burrow shook with it, though, and he thought he could hear Voldemort's laughter as the Horcrux flew from his body back to Connor's.

Connor's hands were still moving. He picked up one of the healing potions lying beside him and dashed it down his throat.

The prophecies sang like wildfire. Three heavy weights whirled down, one right after the other, and landed like iron barbells in the corner.

Letters overrode his vision, information Harry remembered from _Medicamenta Meatus Verus, _where he had first discovered the Switching Potion.

_There are three ways in which the Switching Potion is fatal. One is if another potion is consumed within five minutes of drinking half the draft._

Connor coughed.

Blood burst from his ears, and trickled down his cheeks in lazy patterns of red. Then another stream of blood answered from his nose. Connor sagged to the ground, and Harry could hear his internal organs rupturing, one after another.

But he was smiling.

Harry grasped his hand. "No," he said, but it was the helpless noise of a child denied something it badly wanted.

Connor grinned up at him, and answered as if he had asked, "Why?" "Because the world needs you more than me, Harry. Merlin knows I love Parvati, I love my life, I love what I am—" He broke off to cough. Red flecked his lips. He finished, with a determination that Harry could only stare at. "I love you. But I choose to lay it down, I choose to sacrifice it." He touched Harry's cheek with a trembling hand. "And that ought to take care of both the willing sacrifice and the body the Horcrux is hiding in, just as you said it would."

_The elder will stand at his shoulder, loving him, but the younger will love the whole of the wizarding world…_

Never, in all his dreams and his interpretations of the prophecy, had Harry imagined that one moment of loving the whole of the wizarding world—the kind of moment just long enough to contain one of Connor's impulsive actions—might be the answer to the third round of the prophecy.

"I love you, Harry," Connor said, steadily. "But this hurts as much as anything Voldemort did to me." Harry heard something burst in his chest cavity, and Connor's face went white. "Please," he said. "Knock me unconscious now."

Harry could not stop weeping, and he could not disobey his brother's last request. "I love you," he said, and touched Connor's scar, and quietly shut down the center of his brain that kept him awake, so that he would not be aware and in the midst of pain when he died.

Connor smiled at him, and closed his eyes.

He did not open them again.

* * *

_The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches_.

The shard of soul had indeed fled from Connor's body the moment he was dead. Harry had caught and shredded it like a bat, taking it apart down to the tendons, absorbing the magic inside him. He had no pity for things like this, things of Voldemort, not anymore.

_Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies._

He and Connor had indeed both been born here, at the end of July in 1980, to parents like that. They had entered the world only fifteen minutes apart.

_He is the younger of two, and he shall have the power the Dark Lord knows not._

Connor indeed had loved. And Voldemort had never anticipated the power that could have, or he would have taken far greater measures to guard his last Horcrux than he had.

Harry's footsteps as he left the room where his brother lay dead were as soft as a leopard's.

_For the elder is power, but the younger is power united with love._

No one had ever said that that power in the second phrase had to be magical power. It could be determination. Harry himself had used the Dark, not sheer magical power alone, to defeat Falco.

Harry passed the stone wall. He could hear that, ahead of him, Voldemort was no longer laughing. He did not appear to know what had happened. Or perhaps he simply assumed that he should have felt something more, if his Horcrux was really gone.

_O guard him, O shield him, for the darkness through which he passes otherwise is vicious and hideous, and love has but a scant chance of surviving._

And it had been. Connor had been kidnapped and had nearly succumbed to insanity. And he had not survived.

The final tunnel gaped before Harry. He could feel his own magic rising, dark as Voldemort's, dark as deep water, violent as the sea in storm.

_The elder will stand at his right shoulder, loving him, but the younger will love the whole of the wizarding world._

For one moment; Connor had loved the world that he thought needed Harry, and sacrificed himself and died before he could change his mind. But one moment had been enough.

Harry lifted his head and shook it. When he glanced to the right, the bird with claws on its wings and teeth in its beak hovered there. When he glanced to the left, a black dog with silver eyes tilted her head and looked wisely up at him.

_Power to the right of me, death to the left of me, _Harry thought, and stepped forward.

_The Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, and in so doing mark his heart._

Cause a heart-shaped scar, and give him a piece of his soul, such as Voldemort himself bore. Such a pity no one had ever thought of that interpretation.

Lady Death might have raised her voice like a hunting horn, to warn her prey they were coming. But she did not. This was the proper place for silence, and she moved in it, though every hair on her body bristled. Ahead of them waited one who had escaped her for far too long, Harry knew.

_The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches, born as the seventh month dies._

The bird's wings were loud in the silence.

Harry came to the entrance of the room.

_Three on three the old one coils,  
Three in its times, three in its choices._

And yes, it had been. Draco and Harry, Snape and Harry, Harry and Connor. The prophecy could have made another choice even now, Harry knew: Peter and Connor, for example, or maybe Peter and Harry, if Harry had died and Peter had been the one to kill Voldemort. That had been the reason it had hesitated the way it had. Until the very last moment, the choice could have fallen either way, and it had had to wait to come true until Connor did something irrevocable.

With a soft snort, Harry wondered what a necromancer would have seen if trying to foresee his and Connor's deaths.

_Something confusing_, Lady Death said into his head, in a voice like cold dust.

_So much pain running without a halter,  
More than is traded every day in gold.  
Yet remember that even prophecies falter,  
And it is up to human hands to hold_

_And cling together at the end of all things.  
Prophecies will, inevitably, run out.  
It is on humans to take up wings,  
And makes themselves human past the doubt._

_Connor was human. Always human. Selfish, bratty, limited, ordinary, and capable of such sweetness and generosity as could stun you._

Three prophecies come true, all entangled, and Voldemort mortal now.

Harry stepped into the room.

Voldemort rose to face him. His power mounted around him, still grand, still great, still more than anything Harry could call. But he was confused, hesitating, having felt the prophecies but not knowing what they meant, or perhaps frightened by the sight of the great black hound at Harry's left side.

The hound belled.

The bird shrieked.

Harry said, "_Avada Kedavra._"

The green light blazed and beamed between them. No time for Voldemort to change his expression, nothing that he could do to alter things, and no time to make another Horcrux.

No time for anything at all.

The green light struck home. Voldemort fell dead. Harry stared at him, and wondered if it could all be over, as simply as that—though the madness whispering in the back of his mind, caused by the torture of his brother and heightened by the loss of his brother, said it could not be.

And then he fell to his knees, screaming.

Voldemort's power had begun the transfer to his magical heir.

It came upon Harry in thin lines, stretching from claw-shaped marks on Voldemort's forehead and shoulders, arms and hands and body, to him. Wounds flared on his body in the matching places—the scratches that the bird had inflicted on him during his fifth and sixth years, Harry remembered dreamily. The bird itself flew back and forth over the flowing magic, cawing and cooing happily. _Love, love, love!_ it said into Harry's head. _Love you now!_

So much magic. Harry had never imagined so much magic. As the tunnel contracted, on and on it poured, not a flood of water but a flood of pebbles, then a flood of boulders, then a flood of darkness that lay in caves and had never seen the light, intent on crushing him flat with its evil and tainting his power.

But Harry had lived in his body for seventeen years, and with the powerful magic that Voldemort had accidentally granted him when he shattered Harry's barriers with the Killing Curse for sixteen. He had a core of his own magic, untouched, untapped by the shared connection, and loyal to him only.

_No! I say no!_ he shouted, and wielded his will and the _absorbere_ gift against the magic, constraining it, swallowing and crushing it, forcing it to do as he said.

The power roared and romped and blazed around him, and the fragile balance in Harry's mind tipped. He felt his sanity fall and smash like a little clay figurine on rocks.

He scrambled to his feet, aware that the magic moved with him, but still sulkily, still slyly, as if it would strain to win control over him the moment it could. Harry knew he was probably the most powerful wizard in the world now.

Nothing could have mattered less to him.

No magic in the world could pierce the barriers of death to call his brother back.

He raised his head, and his arms. Wings opened behind him, glittering black things edged in horns and spikes, and with a wordless cry he sprang skyward—

And was _elsewhere,_ on gray sand where waves dashed up to meet him with an equally wordless roar.

On a beach in Northumbria.

Harry cast himself down, and gave himself to the tumble of magic and madness and rioting inside him. Love was a shard to cling to, but it was very small, a raft of ice against a sea of lava. He would have to bring himself back if he were to come back.

Harry closed his eyes, and curled in on himself, and wept like something dying, and the sea answered with cry after rushing cry of pain.


	99. Intermission: Light of Ruin

Once again, a title from "Hymn to Proserpine" (they'll let up soon, I swear), describing the wave of the world: "In its sides is the north-wind bound; and its salt is of all men's tears;/ With light of ruin, and sound of changes, and pulse of years:/ With travail of day after day, and with trouble of hour upon hour;/ And bitter as blood is the spray; and the crests are as fangs that devour:"

**Intermission: Light of Ruin**

Draco's knuckles bled from where he'd dashed them against the wall over and over again. His mind didn't feel much better: scraped raw by the sheer _effort_ to comprehend what was happening, and the certainty that he knew nearly nothing and, at the same time, that he knew enough to mourn.

_He's gone to sacrifice himself. All the work that we put into making him human, all of the man I loved, given up for his brother—_

It would have been easy to hate Connor then, even given all he'd suffered, but it was easier to hate the fact that Harry still felt this way, inclined to die.

And then Peter and Snape cried out simultaneously, and sagged to their knees. Draco opened his mouth to ask what was wrong, even as he drew his wand with one hand. His body seemed to think Voldemort had come to stand outside the wall and that they would have no choice but to fight him.

It was lucky he had one free hand, so that he could fling his arm across his eyes when the light started.

It was a golden-white, piercing, stern kind of radiance. It opened in streaks and gaps through the Dark Marks on both men's arms, and chewed through the flesh. Draco could smell hair singeing. When he did force himself to look straight ahead and see through to the source, he saw the light scraping the Dark Marks as black scraps like burned paper off to either side, and stretching itself outward in a molten birth.

Then it vanished, or migrated from Peter's and Snape's arms to the wall. They knelt there, and Draco stood, in silence, staring, trying to grasp the fact that Voldemort was gone. He _had_ to be, or else what would have happened to the Dark Marks?

Then a golden claw hooked over the top of the stone wall and dragged it down.

Draco gasped as light like a thousand _Lumos_ charms struck his eyes for a moment, but then it faded, and he stood in a dark tunnel flaring with afterimages. He heard Snape and Peter follow him hesitantly out of the alcove, over the tumbled stone, so surprised that fear had been left behind them.

_I don't know what happened, _Draco thought. _But I need to find out._

"I'll take this tunnel," he said quietly, indicating the one in front of them. "You explore other ways."

Though Peter, and especially Professor Snape, probably would have argued against letting him out of their sight under any ordinary circumstances, these were not ordinary circumstances. Or perhaps they were simply as anxious to find Harry as he was. They nodded, and turned towards a massive, arched tunnel that led to the south.

Draco bent and followed the faint traces of Harry's footprints in the dust. He ignored the fact that there was a set coming back the other way, with odd, faint marks beside it like the pawprints of a dog. He could not allow himself to hope until he saw what lay in the room at the end of the tunnel.

* * *

Draco was thus the one to find Connor's body.

He saw black hair around the corner, and stopped suddenly. It was only by drawing on the coldness of his father's voice—_Malfoys are not cowards_—and his mother's—_Never allow fear to cripple you, Draco, for it means you are not being true to yourself_—together could he go forward.

And then he saw Connor lying in the dirt with blood splayed down his face, and the strength went out of his legs. He dropped to his knees, and looked for a long time. He looked at the empty potions vials next to his brother-in-law, and that blood, and the set of footprints that led out of the room.

And the faint tingle of magical power in the air, power that he knew well.

Draco closed his eyes. "You prevented Harry from sacrificing himself," he said. "I don't know how you did it, but thank you." He hesitated for a long moment, then whispered, "I'm sorry."

Well, he _hadn't_ known what would be appropriate to say to his brother-in-law until he saw him again, after all.

A muffled footfall sounded behind him. Draco glanced over his shoulder, wondering if he would see Harry standing there.

The gryphon of the Light, feathers all aglow with the same white-golden radiance that had illuminated the Dark Marks, bowed its eagle's beak towards him and watched him with brilliant eyes.

_The Light pulled the wall down, _Draco thought, paralyzed, staring back, though it was like staring into the sun. _Peter said that only a Light wizard on the outside of the wall could remove it—or the Light itself. I suppose now we know which one it was. But what in the world is it doing here?_

And then he was glad that he hadn't asked the question aloud, because the answer was obvious.

His face flaming, he moved aside and allowed the Light access to Connor's body.

The enormous creature flattened as it crept past him, until the moment when it stood above Connor. Then its eyes softened, in a way that Draco didn't understand—how could an eagle look compassionate?—and it bent its head to rub its beak against him. The white wings rose, and wrapped around the corpse. Draco bowed his head. He knew the Light was probably gathering Connor, to take him home, and he felt uneasy and uncomfortable and awed being so close to the force Connor had been Declared to.

Something crossed his face, a burning shadow. He looked up, and saw one claw hovering above him.

The claw descended.

The nails scraped through Draco like light, and, for one moment, he _understood_. He shared the morals of a Light wizard. He understood what would make someone Declare to the Light.

One could limit oneself voluntarily, so that other people could have freedom and pleasure and beautiful things. They deserved to have them, too, didn't they? And one could lay down one's life so that other people could live. And one could dance between free will on the one side and order on the other, and make it one's life work to reconcile them in a pattern of both joy and beauty.

Draco emerged from that strange experience shaking his head, as the morals left him like water from a sieve. He shivered, and wrapped his arms around himself. He was glad the Light had not forced him to change his mind. He did not _want_ to think differently. He was Dark, Declared, and that was all there was to it.

But he knew the Light had given him a gift nonetheless. For a moment, he had comprehended why Connor had done this.

And, more lastingly, he now understood Harry in a way he doubted he would have achieved otherwise.

He sat back as the gryphon rose on its hind legs, the lion's paws, and spread its wings. Its claws clutched something shining and indistinct, perhaps vaguely human-shaped, close to its breast. Its cry rang out, the eagle's scream breaking into the lion's roar halfway through, the sound of mingled pain and triumph.

Then it blasted straight up through the roof of the burrow, and dirt shook down and covered Draco. But when he looked up through the hole thus left, he saw the stars.

Connor, he noticed when he looked back at him, had a smile on his face.

* * *

Snape and Peter met him in the middle of the tunnel near the collapsed stone wall, dazed enlightenment on their faces.

"Voldemort is dead," Snape said simply. Peter looked too overwhelmed to talk.

Draco nodded. He'd worked out the story now, finally remembering the silver color of the Switching Potion. He held up the vial that had contained it, and Snape at once narrowed his eyes and snatched it away.

"Connor's dead back there," Draco said. Peter closed his eyes, and Draco winced, wishing he'd found some gentler way to break it. But, well, Snape had _had_ to know that it wasn't Harry. "Harry intended to switch the Horcrux into himself, I think, and perhaps he even managed it. But Connor took it _back_, and then—then he died. I think he drank a healing potion to do so."

"So where is Harry?" Snape asked.

Draco shook his head. "I don't know. But he probably fled after—after he inherited Voldemort's power and saw his brother die." He shuddered to imagine what Harry's mind might look like now, and then turned and made his way to the steps out of the burrow.

As if something in the earth itself had kept them from feeling it, now Draco could sense the enormous power bleeding from the north and west. It pulsed like a heart torn from the body. He shuddered again.

"He's in Northumbria," he said absently.

"How in the world do you know?" Snape demanded.

"I don't _know_," said Draco. "But I'm sure." He hesitated, wondering if he could approach Harry in this mood, and then straightened his shoulders. "We'll have to go to him," he said. "But carefully. We don't want to trigger a wizard that powerful into lashing out."

Snape nodded, and then no one really seemed to know what to say, so they stood silently there. The stars blazed overhead with more clarity than Draco remembered them ever having.

_The Dark Lord is gone._

In the distance, an eagle cried.

And Draco saw Connor's bloody face and smiling mouth in his mind again, and thought, as he would never do again, _Farewell, brother._


	100. All So Fair That Are Broken

Thank you for the reviews!

Fair warning: most of this chapter is, um, kind of strange. But then, most of it is written from Harry's point-of-view, and Harry is far from sane right now.

Another "Hymn to Proserpine" title: "Ye are fallen, our lords, by what token? we wist that ye should not fall./ Ye were all so fair that are broken; and one more fair than ye all."

**Chapter Eighty: All So Fair That Are Broken**

Monika did not step back from her pool until she was quite sure that the interaction between Lord Riddle and his heir had ended—long moments after the pool had gone dark. She had enchanted it to record those kinds of interactions solely, and so it made sense that it would become obscure when one of them died, but Lord Riddle had had so many tricks to cheat death that Monika half expected the water to brighten to silver again.

It did not. This time, the man who called himself Voldemort was truly dead, and his magic had transferred to Harry.

Harry was the most powerful wizard in the world.

And weakened, emotionally insane, terribly vulnerable…

Monika did not hesitate. There was a way around the Pact's sanctions about going to Britain, and she knew what they were. She had prepared herself against such a day. She would create a sending of herself, a powerful glamour that would gradually fill in with her physical body, and place it on the beach where the pool had showed her the last vision of Harry—more than clear enough for Apparition. She still had a tapeworm of the kind that would steal magic for her. And even a third of that incredible power would be enough to insure that no member of the Pact after that could challenge her and force her to face any consequence of her actions. She would _be_ a consequence. And the Pact mostly lived with what occurred. They would accept Harry's death—probably with more than one secretly grateful that the slayer of three Lords had gone out of the world—and her new status without fuss.

_If they know what is good for them._

Monika smiled, and then began to chant the words and fuel the will that would create the sending for her.

* * *

A black wolf with green eyes and a silver lightning bolt scar looked into his face.

A green wolf with silver eyes and a black lightning bolt scar looked into his face.

A silver wolf—

No! No silver wolf. The silver he had seen was the gray color of the beach and the waves transmuted, and what he had thought was the wolf's howl was the laughter of gulls, springing around him like foam. Harry clenched his fists and screamed back. The laughter fell silent in startlement, and then the sea crept up the sand and licked at his boots like a servant. Harry knew it would do what he asked of it, did he but ask piercingly enough. He stretched out a shaking hand, which firmed when he felt the cold of the spray on his fingers.

The wolf had retreated a short distance away from him, to sit at his left shoulder. It could never stand at the right one. No one could stand at the right one without being terribly hurt and marked more than he should be. There was a prophecy about that. Give Harry a moment, and he would recall the wording.

But what if he didn't want to recall the wording? What if he wanted to lie here for the rest of his life, and feel the sea on his fingers?

His magic whispered eagerly that it could make it so. He might turn into a statue with nerves only in its hand, and no one would be able to approach that hand, which a sphere of pure white light would guard, but he could feel the sea, again and again, as long as he liked. It might disintegrate him into a mixture of sand and air and magic, but the hand would stay. It could move him from world to world, opening gates whenever he tired of the feel of one particular set of waters, while he need never move his body but could only stare into the sea.

This was the beach where he had come with—

And the sounds of the name formed in his mind, hard stop, soft vowels, loud nasals, and he screamed, the cry of a wild and lonely thing.

Wild and lonely things played in the corners of his mind, creatures that lived in the paths between Dark and Light, and which he would have had to glance away from the sea to acknowledge. The waves whispered their condolences for his loss. A slim dog, a lovely greyhound, came up out of the sea with a collar of salt on her neck and stood there, licking softly at his cheek, and the silver center of one palm, with a cold tongue. Then she turned into a woman, which had never happened before, and sat down beside him. Harry saw her through his magic, since his eyes would not turn away from staring in front of him. One side of her body lived and throve, with healthy skin and a soft brown eye and shining white hair of a snow-like loveliness. The other side of her body was flesh scraped and burned raw, with a seamed half-lip parched raw by thirst, and wisps of hair that cracked as she moved, and an eye-socket filled with smashed jelly. In her living hand she held a dead rose, in the dead hand a live one.

_Et in Arcadia ego_, Lady Death said softly.

Harry knew the words. _Even in Arcadia, I am. _In the most perfect, beautiful, idyllic place on earth, Death lingered. He could not escape from it. She was the counterpart to life. He was what came when life ended, and there was no immortality, no turning away from it.

As Voldemort's death had proved, and Connor's—

Harry flung the name from him as he would a branding iron. It hurt far, far too much to contemplate.

_Go away!_ he screamed at Lady Death, and she bowed her head, and blew on the roses until they danced around him, bright blooming red flower and withered black husk together, and then went away.

The roses smelled sweet.

Any rose would smell sweet, Harry thought. Roses were interchangeable. Thoughts were interchangeable. He could lie here amid the smell of roses and the lure of thoughts and never, never think about things he didn't have to think about.

There was an abyss of Light opening beneath his feet—the path into the paths, the gate to another world. He could fly into that. He could go to see what Calypso McGonagall, and other Light Lords and Ladies who had lived out their lives and faded, had learned so long ago. Harry knew there were beauties there which could soothe his pain, make him forget. If he listened, he could hear the running of a golden Lethe.

Behind him, the wild Dark touched his neck with a cold nose. Harry turned and looked into the darkness between the stars. He could fly there, too. He could become the wind, and take delight for the rest of eternity in inflicting pain like his own on those who dared to have happy lives. The Dark gave a quiet, eager, wolf-like little whine. It had always wanted him. It could have him, if he would agree. Its longing was touched with awe now, the eagerness that came with the idea that it could absorb as much magic as currently hung around him.

Harry lay on the beach beside the sea, his hand in the water, and hung between the Dark and the Light.

And then he felt the pull as someone else Apparated in.

He lifted his head, and his magic _snarled_. He knew he could make the person who was coming towards him cease to exist with a thought. But he did not. Some cold part of his mind, which he had inherited from Voldemort, bade him wait and see how amusing she could be.

* * *

Monika shuddered and put a hand over her eyes. Even in sending form, with part of her still at home in a magically heated clearing, she could feel the cold of the magic ahead of her beating on her face. Ripples of power made her bones sing, and her blood rose and flowed in different directions like the tide called by the moon. It was an annoying sensation, and she had to pause a moment to deal with it before she could walk forward.

Harry lay ahead of her, with one hand in the water, exactly as she had last seen him.

Save that he was looking towards her.

Monika lifted her head. Well, she had known he might look at her before the end. But she did not care if he did. He wanted to die, and she could offer him the death he wanted. She could even offer him a home for the magic he contained, which, being Harry, he would be rather concerned about. He had no reason to fight her when she sent the tapeworm into him.

"Lord Black," she began. "I am here to—"

And then he reached out, with a faint, feral expression in his eyes that could not be called a smile, could not be called anything but insanity, and _yanked_.

The rest of her flew away from the clearing near her house and into her sending form. Monika collapsed to her knees, gasping. Suddenly she was really there, on the beach, and magic streaked her vision like melting snow, and filled the world all around her so that she could not sense the coming spring any more.

A grip encircled her throat. It felt like an invisible iron band. It said, more clearly than death did, that he would break her neck if she moved.

"You have been a bane to me since the first day I met you," Harry's voice said. He had not moved, but he was there, in front of her, and Monika wondered if he had commanded the beach to tip and spill him down to her. In the bowed position the magic was increasingly forcing her into, she could see only the tops of his shoes. "And I say that you will be a bane no more." He laughed. "I should have threatened your home and your people before now. What say you, Monika, to the sea rising and covering all of Austria?"

And now Monika really understood what magic and madness of this sort meant.

Sand filled her mouth. She had to spit several times before she could say, "You would drown many innocents to reach my land."

"I do not care." Strange light shone from Harry's face onto hers. Monika was terribly afraid it came from actual sparks burning in his eyes. "The sea is always hungry—immeasurably hungry. She birthed the land, and someday soon she will have all of us again. So Kanerva believed, and I am inclined to believe the same thing. The difference between us is that I can make something like this come true, if I choose to believe it." He bent down, and she could see the edge of his cheek and jawline now. Monika knew she did not want to see his eyes. "What say you, Monika? Shall the waters rise? Or will you agree to stay away from Britain for the rest of your days? I shall require a vow from you that will kill you if you break it."

"The Unbreakable Vow?" Monika whispered.

"Hardly," Harry said. "We have no one here to serve as Bonder, unless Lady Death would agree." He laughed, and one of Monika's eyes burst. She held still, because she could do nothing else, and she loved her life more than her sight. "This is a new spell I will create. You _cannot_ break it, in any way. You cannot come to Britain with another Pact member. You cannot send a servant here. You cannot create a glamour of yourself as you did today."

Monika said nothing.

"And I can do it," said Harry, with terrible gentleness, "as surely as I just insured that you will never see out of your right eye again, because I am the most powerful wizard in the world. Didn't you _know_?"

He lifted his arms, and Monika felt the form of the world change. The structures of magic, which had not included any such vow as Harry talked about, trembled and warped and split apart, and made place for the new spell. And then Harry cast it, in a voice so twisted with sea-wind and the cry of the waves leaping behind him, hungry and angry, that Monika could not make out the incantation.

_Perhaps that is just as well._

The vow settled around her like a cage that molded itself to every curve of her body, and then the grip on her throat ended. Monika lay, breathing, in the sand. Had she been of the Light, false courage would have required her to say that she was exhausted and could not stand. But it was not that, not at all. She was afraid to look up at him, and she knew, now, that she should never have come here.

"Now, _go_," Harry said, and flung her home.

She landed in her clearing, face down in the dirt, as she had left Britain. A confused bleat came from some of her sheep.

Monika took a deep breath and stood, shaking out her hair, her mind thronging with spells that could help compensate for her new blind side.

She was of the Dark. She had gambled, and lost. She would live with the consequences.

* * *

Harry bowed his head, and took several deep breaths when the apparition of the woman flickered out as if she had never been, in Apparition.

He could feel the magic pressing down, trying to crush his mind. It was eager to be of service to him, but that very service would be his doom. He was not meant to carry such a burden. Voldemort could have contented himself with this level of magic, Monika could have, maybe even Jing-Xi or Kanerva, but not Con—

**_Do not think the name_**

--and not him. Harry knew his choices were two: to die, which would make the magic dissipate and appear again only among the memories of wizards dancing on Walpurgis Night, or to give it away and climb out of the madness it induced.

And now he stood, abyss above him, darkness behind him, sea in front of him, and had to make that choice.

Harry closed his eyes. He _wanted_ to die. He wanted it so badly. He could remember speaking to Joseph about that desire, last year, and the tingle of yearning in his stomach had increased since his brother—

**_Do not think the name_**

--had died. What better way to die than to follow him? Harry had been content enough to do that when he went down to be the sacrifice. It all made sense. He had done something great for Draco, delaying going to his twin's side because Draco had asked him to. He would do something great for his brother, too, giving up his life so that he could live. It balanced.

But what about the rest of the world?

_Does anyone else in the world want me, mad as I am, broken as I am? _Harry walked in his mind through a garden of tumbled white statues and snap-stemmed silver flowers, and he did not know.

There were people he could help, but that was not the same thing as someone wanting him. There were people who would be glad to see him alive, but that was not the same thing as someone wanting him. There were people who would mourn if he died, but that was not the same thing as someone wanting him.

In that hour of water, as Harry stood with the sea lapping around his feet, what came to him was a memory of sweat and skin and sex, a body beneath his, and a hand gripping his hair and tugging.

_Yes. Draco wants me._

So he had that reassurance.

But even that was not enough. Harry stepped over a glinting pool, nearly drained, with a statue lying face down in it, and knew that, if he returned to the world, he would have to return for himself. _He_ would need to want to live. He could not bury himself again in service to other people, not with the Occlumency pools boiled away and not with Con—

**_Do not think the name_**

--gone. He had to make this choice for himself.

He stood in the broken garden. Under him was the abyss of Light. Harry stared yearningly into it. The wolf leaned against his back, a cold weight, and the sea spoke to him again and again, ready to rise if he commanded it and drown Austria.

This time, the memory that came to him was one of the vial full of Switching Potion clashing against his ribs. He had been selfish, then. He had known that giving up his life would hurt Draco and Snape and others, but he had not cared.

_True to my House._

There was—

**_Do not think the name_**

--enough in his memory that he did not _need_ to climb out. But he also did not _want_ to give himself to Light or Dark, or to step into the water. The madness would be simple, but it would also be boring. It would be the end of his existence as a conscious being. He would become, more or less, the plaything of any force that wanted him, until, perhaps, the Pact hunted and killed him, or he took over the world with his magic, or everyone drowned.

_No. I don't want that._

The thought of what lay ahead, all the healing and repairing to be done, foisted itself on him as a great weakness. So Harry narrowed his gaze, and refused to think about the healing and the repairing. He thought only of rest and sleep, not in madness or in death, but in Draco's arms. Everyone else who wanted his help would just have to wait their turns, that was all.

Most of his life, Harry had been at the beck and call of one form of service, one person, one cause or another. The thought of simply laying down his burden for a while and dreaming in silence attracted him even more than death did.

He looked up. A golden rope of his desire dangled above him. Harry reached out and gave it a firm tug. It held. Dark green strands braided it, he saw. Dark and Light, both always and forever intertwined.

Harry grasped the rope and began to climb out of the abyss.

* * *

Jing-Xi turned. The window that showed Harry hovered in front of her, and behind her were the windows containing other members of the Pact—save for Monika, who was recovering on her own time. No one had opposed Jing-Xi when she refused to contact the Dark Lady of Austria. Besides, opening a window just as Monika approached Harry would have been too awkward to endure.

"Need we argue about this again?" Jing-Xi asked coolly. Of course, it felt as though all she had been doing for the past few months, whenever she was in communication with her peers at all, was argue about Harry, so she thought she had the right to sound exasperated. There were problems with the emergence of a new Lord-level child in the Pacific, and a wizarding disease on the verge of breaking out in Mexico, which looked like it could be a variant of the Serpent's Tongue Plague. They should be ready to think about _other_ things by now, Jing-Xi believed. "He didn't hurt Monika, even though he was insane at the time. He fought back against Lord Riddle _alone,_ and he didn't immediately take over the world or come hunting us. And he's coming back from madness on his own. Need we really appoint someone to watch over him?" That was the Pact's latest suggestion, put forth by Lord Brewer. Jing-Xi thought it sounded like the monitoring board that Aurora Whitestag had led, and had opposed it from the start.

"There is the still the matter of the insult he offered us," Elena said in her dead voice.

"And if you come to blows with him over insults, it is a private matter, and no need to involve the Pact," Jing-Xi snapped. Yes, the Dark Lady of Peru was a formidable enemy, but Jing-Xi was not afraid of her, especially not when she could see similarly disgusted looks growing on the faces around her. The demonstration of Harry's stability in the midst of madness, with Monika going away half-blind but not dead and not even drained of her power, had impressed most of them, she knew. "He has never been allowed to fit in as he should have. We distrusted him for not being Declared, and then we said he must fight a war on his own, and then we tried to distract him while Lord Riddle still threatened his land and his people. He has grown up _much_ better than can be expected, and with much less help. We should accord him as much courtesy as any other Lord now. Preventing you from attacking his partner, my Lady Elena, and turning his back while he spoke to us, could hardly be said to be an insult by any of the standards we use."

"I agree," said Alexandre. His face was as nearly content as Jing-Xi had ever seen it. She thought he was satisfied to have seen so many prophecies come true at once. "Leave the boy alone. We may watch him until the end of his return to sanity if we wish, but he has done more than we could expect of anyone."

"I agree," Pamela said at once.

"And I," said Brewer.

"And I," Coatlicue added. Her voice had a ring of pride, as if she had been the one to mentor Harry to his current level. Jing-Xi could forgive that, really. She had held out for being as neutral in Harry's situation as possible, and so had ended up being the one who treated him most like part of the Pact already. "Besides, I would like to turn our attention to the Serpent's Tongue crisis."

One by one, other voices murmured their assurances. Elena was the only holdout, and from the way Alexandre eyed her, Jing-Xi rather thought she would have a problem if she tried to go after Harry, even undetected.

And Monika—

Jing-Xi concealed a smile. She had never seen the Dark Lady of Austria so thoroughly spanked.

"Yes, let us look to Mexico," said Pamela. "When this is ended."

Jing-Xi nodded, and turned to face the window again.

* * *

Harry climbed, and, as he climbed, he gave his power away.

Oh, not _all_ of it. But he could not live with so much magic squatting in the back of his mind, or racing about his head like a crown of song, asking to do things for him. And there was always the possibility that Voldemort's power would gain a will of its own if he confined it for long enough and try to break free of the prison or make him do things he would rather not do. Harry would not risk that.

He was Slytherin in his selfishness, perhaps, but not his ambition. Or perhaps he was more ambitious than others, to want to accomplish something without the magic that would intimidate many of his potential opponents before they even lifted their voices.

So he cut Voldemort's power from his. Had he not lived so long with the magic released from the phoenix web at the end of his second year, it would have been impossible, but he had, and he knew what his magic should feel like. Everything else, he cut away, and sent elsewhere.

One third went to the wild Dark, which immediately stopped floating beside him in the form of a black wolf and went away to play with it. Harry almost smiled at that, the first smile he had given since—

**_Do not think the name_**

--his brother had died. The wild Dark was a child in so many ways that he couldn't regret his decision not to join it, powerful and beautiful though it could also be. It was not in him to Declare for Dark. It had probably been too late for that the moment he fully understood his vows.

One third went to the Light. The golden abyss beneath him had opened and contracted like a beating heart, but when he dropped his magic into it, the contractions increased, until only a small slit of gold remained, rather like the gold that had split the surviving Death Eaters' Dark Marks as they burned away. It would open for him if he wished to drop, but not otherwise.

_How did I know that, about their Dark Marks?_

When he stopped to think about the question, he hung motionless from the rope, and the magic made a determined effort to come back. Harry shook his head and started climbing again. One thing at a time.

And one more third of extra magic to give away.

He gave it to the sea, that ever-hungry creature that would have obeyed his command to drown Austria, and which had called him to her when Voldemort died. He had dreamed of that. Or had he simply had dreams of the sea, and his mind and magic used the coincidence to pull him here, to a place where he had felt something like peace and safety, and a connection to the Potter line?

He would never know.

His magic vanished into the sea like a diving dolphin. Harry knew the waves would use it better than he would. Perhaps it would go to nourish hippocampi, to split the web on a kraken, or to encourage the flourishing of sirens. He could not know, and he was glad not to.

And then he had the most difficult part of the abyss to climb, through diamond shards that waited to cut into him. Harry hesitated only a moment before he struck forward, watching with clinical detachment as the shards cut into his arms and made them bleed. None sliced across his wrists, though. None would unless he changed his mind and decided he wanted to die.

He did not. He had made the decision to reach the top of the abyss for himself, and he would go on living. For himself.

It had to be so, no matter how much he loved and admired and respected other people. Otherwise, the deep desire to die would reassert itself someday, and he did not know if he could always keep himself from following it.

And when he was back to sanity, he was back to grief.

**_Do not think the name_**

So he climbed, and the diamond shards closed in harder and harder, until the golden rope ran like a narrow stream of warm water through pack ice. And still Harry climbed, his mind cleared, concentrated on that single goal.

To live. For himself.

Memories poured in, and Harry fitted and spun them into place. Emotions crashed into his head, and he winced but continued the climb. Sanity slipped nearer and nearer, and sometimes he stopped to take a breath, but on he always went.

He had to. He wanted to. He needed to.

For himself.

It must be so. Harry understood that now, as though the death of the one person he had tried most to live for—

**_Do not think the name_**

--had shown him the folly of doing it for anyone or any_thing_ else. He could not be just his causes. He could not be just his sacrifices. He had _tried_, when he went to Voldemort's lair, and that had resoundingly failed, just as every project begun in Godric's Hollow ultimately had.

The old way did not work. So he would try this new way.

He reached a glassy roof. Harry lifted one hand from the rope and ran his palm over it. Pain waited on the other side, pain and the full consciousness of pain.

He took a deep breath, and butted his head and shoulders against the glass, shattering it.

His eyes opened, and saw what was there, the gray sea in front of him and the weak sun rising, and the people walking cautiously towards him across the damp sand of the beach. And then he screamed, because the voice that had protected him relentlessly in the depths of his madness was equally relentless now.

**_Say the name._**

"Connor," Harry whispered, and there were tears on his face as if he had never wept for his brother. He was in the world he had fled because it contained his twin no longer. Now he would never flee it again.

_It hurts, it hurts, _he wailed to himself.

_But you are not alone,_ another part of himself answered, and he looked up the beach again.

* * *

Snape and Peter had both been reluctant to approach Harry, insisting that a mad wizard with that much power was dangerous in any case, and that they should wait until Harry had some chance to get used to his status as Voldemort's magical heir and control his power. Draco had not listened. They had Apparated to the beach and come slowly closer and closer to Harry, pausing several times along the way to watch.

And then the sense of his magic had diminished. Draco had looked back in time to catch the look of shock on Peter's face, the near-sorrow on Snape's.

_Did they really think he'd keep it? _Draco snorted and turned away again. _He wasn't thinking of what he could do with it. He was thinking of what it might make him do to other people—or he was thinking that he didn't want it. Either way is a very good sign._

And then Harry stumbled and gave a low-voiced cry that Draco knew, just as he knew where Harry would be, was his brother's name, and the time for caution had passed. Draco ran forward.

Harry turned to meet him, and devastated though his face was with the remnants of grief and mourning, his eyes were sane. Words dried in Draco's throat. He put his arms around Harry instead and held him tight, tight, tight.

_He could have died. He wanted to die. But he didn't stay mad, and he didn't commit suicide. He came back. He came back._

And Harry whispered—perhaps his magic or his Legilimency had brought Draco's thoughts to him, but Draco didn't really care about the method right now—the words Draco had most desired to hear. "I wanted to come back." His arms encircled Draco's shoulders in return. "But I don't want to be alone."

"You won't be, ever again," Draco said, and his arms clamped down tight, tight, tight.

Harry whispered his brother's name and began to weep, then, and Snape and Peter came forward. Snape tried to take Harry out of Draco's arms. Draco refused to let him go. He knew what Silver-Mirror looked like, and could Apparate Harry there as well as Snape could.

His hand wandered into Harry's hair and clenched there, though he could not bring himself to tug.

_Mine._

_No, ours, more precisely._

And then he pulled back enough to look Harry in the eye, and remembered Harry's words, and corrected his own wording.

_No. Ours, yes, but his own, too. At last._

_Come back from the breaking._


	101. Back From the Abyss

Thank you for the reviews on these last chapters! I'm glad that the climax worked for people. Just five more chapters (counting this one), one Intermission, and an epilogue to go now.

**Chapter Eighty-One: Back From the Abyss**

Harry waited until they were back in their bedroom before he yawned. It was such a massive, jaw-cracking yawn that Draco would not have been surprised to see it travel around the sides of his head and split the top half from the bottom.

"I'm tired," Harry said, opening one eye.

Draco nodded gravely, and then dragged him towards the bed. "Do you want Dreamless Sleep?" he asked. He could only imagine what Harry's nightmares would look like if he didn't take some kind of potion.

"No," Harry said, and twisted somehow, so that when he fell onto the sheets, he looped his arms and legs over Draco and Draco fell with him. "I want just to _rest_. And I want you to stay with me."

Harry probably wouldn't understand why the tone of his request—sweet, gentle exhaustion, without a hint of apology—made Draco's throat tighten and his eyes spark with tears. At least, he wouldn't understand right _now_. But Draco was more than amenable. His own muscles still shook with aches, dirt felt ground-in to his pores, and his hair dangled in his eyes from sweat, but next to the relief of having Harry back, he could ignore them for a while. He rolled over so that he lay next to Harry, head resting on his chest, arms around him. Harry gave a little sigh at him, and then closed his eyes.

If Draco was any judge of his breathing—and he should be—Harry was asleep on the _instant_.

Draco did stay awake himself long enough to consider what people would probably demand over the next few days. Explanations of how Voldemort had died, proof that it had happened, proof of Connor's death, information on the Horcruxes and why Harry had taken so long to locate the last ones and destroy them—

_I don't care. They can demand whatever they like. It doesn't mean that either one of us has to answer until we're ready._

And with _that_ in mind, Draco closed his eyes and gave himself to sleep.

* * *

It was hours before Snape could take a seat in an armchair, lean back, and close his eyes.

To him had fallen the task of telling the others in Silver-Mirror that, at last, Voldemort was truly dead; Peter had been too overwhelmed by the loss of Harry's brother. Stares had followed, then innumerable questions, and then a celebration that the others had tried their very best to drag him into. Snape had resisted. He wanted to find a room where he could be alone and _think_ about all that had happened.

Strangely, with as much as he had to think about, his memories tended to dance like hurricane winds around one central point: the moment when his Dark Mark had torn and burned with light, and he had understood that the monster he once sold his soul to was, finally and completely, dead.

Snape's hand moved lightly, tracing his unmarked left arm, and the skin there, which looked unaffected other than a small bare patch where the fire had also burned hair. No matter how many times he touched it, he could not believe it. The black snake and skull had been part of him for so long he had adapted his movements to them, learned how to act so that the sleeve always covered them, learned to ignore the bitter, biting pain that arose in them when Voldemort felt angry, learned how to turn away from the stares that resulted when people learned he was Marked. And now—gone. Now he could shed those instincts if he liked, and the people still staring would be the ones society judged rude for it.

He did not know what to think, how to feel. It was as though he had died and opened his eyes expecting an afterlife of torment, only to find that he had been allowed into a world of tests and trials identical to the one he left behind.

_Tests and trials. Do not forget that._

It would have been easier if Regulus had been with him now.

Snape frowned and opened his eyes. He did not like the feelings that assaulted him: loneliness chewing a hole in the center of his chest, and regret keener than he had felt since Regulus died. Yes, he knew now that he should have acknowledged Regulus's love while he still lived. But he had known that for more than two months. Why should the feeling reoccur so strongly now?

_Because now I have a life worthy of sharing with him._

Snape leaned his head back again, and was still for a long time. When he rose, it was to brew.

* * *

The depth of his grief made Peter feel as if he were made of rotten ice. Now a weight had shattered the surface of him, and he stared into the cold water beneath, and _mourned_.

_Not James's son, after all, nor Lily's. He was more than those, his own person. And Harry's _brother.

Of course, Peter did not yet know the whole story, only what Draco and Snape had managed to surmise from the Switching Potion Harry had taken into Voldemort's lair and the state of Connor's body, which Peter and Snape had gone to fetch while Draco took Harry away. But it seemed likely. Harry had gone down, seeming to obey his old training after all, and intending to die as a sacrifice for Connor—save that Peter was sure this _had_ been his own choice, however much it might not seem like it to someone else. But Connor had died as a sacrifice for him instead, and not just because he wanted to spare Harry's life, or Peter doubted the prophecy would have been fulfilled.

And now Peter stood in the room where they had placed Connor's body, under preservation spells to keep it from decaying until Harry was well enough for the funeral, and stared at it, and could think of nothing equal to this.

_I intended to die in the garden. But I didn't intend to die _for _something so much as think that I should use my death for good, because my life was less precious than someone else's._

Peter closed his eyes. _And that would have been an empty sacrifice next to knowing that I was loved, seeing with clear eyes how much people would miss me, and laying down my life anyway. This was a gesture of love. Mine would have been a gesture of—emptiness. _

In silence, as if he and Connor were the center of a wheeling galaxy, Peter stood there, and watched. Connor's face bore perhaps a dozen trails of blood, springing from eyes and ears and nose. His eyes were shut, and, to hear Draco talk, had been since he found him. He had a faint smile on his lips, a smile of farewell that Peter hoped Harry had seen before he departed and killed Voldemort.

And somewhere, in the early hours of the morning, the transition came.

Peter put one hand over his face, and took a deep breath of the kind he last remembered heaving when he broke through his phoenix web and realized the extent of the Marauders' betrayal.

_Even if no one else cares for me as much as they do for others, even if I think I could die and no one would miss me, there is still good that I can do if I live which I can't if I die._

That was the vow he had given himself when he chose to escape from Azkaban and help Harry, another victim of the phoenix web and Dumbledore's sacrificial training, instead of simply squatting where he was and meditating bitterly on how wronged he'd been.

He could make that vow again now, couldn't he? And it wasn't true that no one needed him. Harry did. Connor had. There were the students he had taught during his tenure as Defense Against Dark Arts professor, and the students of Gryffindor House whose tears he had dried and whose triumphs he had cheered. The idea he'd formed of himself as someone without human connections when he decided to die for the Ravenclaw Horcrux was as limiting, in its own way, as the idea the other Marauders had formed of him when they thought him only fit to act as a traitor so that no one else would find out Dumbledore had exposed the Potter children to danger.

_I'm not just that. I'm more than that. And if, by some chance, that idea was true, I can be more than that in the future. _

_We labored so long to make Harry consider the future instead of just the present. And now I'm going to be so much of a hypocrite as to forget that?_

For the first time since Voldemort had stolen Connor away, Peter smiled. And if the hand he reached out to touch Connor's hair trembled, well, no one but Connor and him had to know that.

* * *

The world had darkened.

He was dead.

Parvati had told Padma, lightly enough, that the marriage ritual she and Connor used had bound their souls, but didn't require that they be endlessly faithful to each other if one of them died. And that was true enough. She could marry someone else with another kind of ritual, or take lovers.

At the moment, though, she wished they had used a ritual that would drag one partner into death immediately after the other. She wanted, so badly, to just _be gone_. Not really into death, not permanently, but to end the pain, and a ritual that dragged her away would have been one solution.

She sat in a corner of their room and cried, her hair shielding her face, her nose so swollen that it felt as if it would burst any moment. The tears would not stop coming. She hadn't prepared herself for this.

Every moment since Connor's capture had been a nightmare. But, somehow, she hadn't faced up to the ultimate nightmare at the end of it. She had believed that he would return to her, that Harry would rescue him and bring him home. Yes, Voldemort was a monster, but heroes always faced and fought monsters in the stories, and they always won in the end. When Parvati listened to the history songs and the tales her mother used to tell her, that was the part she loved most, the happy ending. She had felt sorry for the people who died in the pursuit of the ending and thought they were very noble, but, well, the story wasn't _about_ them, really; it was about the heroes. And since Connor filled the position of hero in this story, she hadn't thought he would die.

He had. She had known it from the expression on Professor Pettigrew's face when he Apparated back in, even before she saw him holding Connor's body. She'd rushed forward, and tried to shove him aside. If he wasn't breathing, they should _make_ him breathe. Didn't they _know_ that? You used a spell that would remove a block if someone was choking, and you used a spell that would guide air in and out of their lungs if someone wasn't breathing. It was simple magic, something that every Light pureblood child learned from the time she was six years old or so.

Parvati had pointed her wand at Connor and said, "_Creo aurae!_" It was the spell to make someone breathe. She'd known it for _such_ a long time, but she'd never had cause to use it. Now she did, and it was a relief to know that something she had learned in childhood, something so simple, could be the means of bringing her husband back from the dead.

But Connor's chest refused to move. Parvati frowned.

Professor Pettigrew spoke in a horribly gentle voice that Parvati knew would break her if she listened. "Miss Patil—Parvati—"

"Patil Potter," she said, not looking at him, but at Connor. "I took his last name like that, and he took mine. He's Potter Patil now. It's part of the ritual we used." She aimed her wand at Connor again. "_Creo aurae!_"

Nothing. No movement.

Parvati turned fiercely on Professor Pettigrew. "What did you do to him? If the preservation spells are keeping him like that, take them off!" She stamped her foot. "He needs air, you know."

"He's dead," the professor said quietly.

"No, he's _not_," Parvati said.

"Yes. He is." And the professor held a hand out towards her, as if that would comfort her.

Parvati had darted away from it, and then she had looked back at Connor, and then she had _run_. Because, obviously, if he was dead, she could not stay there.

She had wept since then. Vague thoughts about contacting Padma and her parents drifted across her mind, but before she could have their sympathy, she would have to explain what had happened. The effort that would take was wearying just to think about.

So she sat there, and cried until she could cry no longer, and then simply slumped against the wall, drained and dead in her own right.

The door opened. Someone crossed the floor to her, grasped her chin, brushed her hair aside, and held a Calming Draught to her lips. He never spoke. As Parvati swallowed the potion, she realized it must have had a sleeping draught intermixed, because her muscles relaxed at once and her mind slipped away, into the temporary cessation from pain she had wanted.

She told herself, when she woke the next morning, still leaning against the wall, that grief had done strange things to her memory. Professor Snape might have been the one who brewed the potion, but he would never have been the one who brought it to her.

* * *

Ginny wondered for a moment why _she_ had to be the person to pull her brother out of depression.

Then she remembered. _It's because I'm stronger than he is, some of the time._

"Well, _I_ want to go see him," she said. She could perhaps have been less bossy if she tried, but coaxing rarely worked on Ron. Bossing did the trick, perhaps because he was so used to it from Mum and five—_four_—older brothers. "So, come on, Ron. The funeral can't be more than a few days away, and this might be the only private hour that we'll have with him."

Ron just closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. "I never thought he would die," he whispered. "Out of any of us. He was Harry's _brother_. That was supposed to make him safe."

"Percy was our brother, and the Minister's assistant, and it didn't make him safe," said Ginny quietly. The reference to Percy made Ron open his eyes and glare at her, as she had hoped it would. She put her hands on her hips and stared him down. "Besides, Hermione wants to see Connor, too. So get on your feet, and let's go to the room they set aside for him."

That was, perhaps, playing more than a little dirty, because Ron still had the lingering remnants of a crush on Hermione, but it made him grimace and get to his feet, so Ginny didn't really care how fair she had to play it. "I swear, if that prat Zacharias makes _one_ comment about Connor he shouldn't—" Ron started.

"Zacharias won't be there," Ginny cut in. It was true. Zacharias had spent some time comforting Hermione, but he had also gone home to his mother now, probably to discuss what the Light purebloods were going to do in the wake of Voldemort's fall. Ginny grimaced in turn. She supposed it was necessary, and, after all, Zacharias hadn't been in Gryffindor and hadn't known Connor like the rest of them. But, since she was not interested in being fair right now, she didn't think he should have left Hermione alone to grieve, either.

Ron's eyes brightened, a bit, and he moved down the hall in the direction of Connor's room—the funeral room, as Ginny had started to call it in the privacy of her mind, though for all she knew, they would move Connor's body out of the room before the funeral. Ginny kept at his heels, just to make sure he couldn't turn his back and walk away at the last moment.

There were wards on the door, but they slid apart the moment Ginny held out her hand. She managed a small smile, then. Professor Pettigrew had set the wards to make sure no merely curious bystander could wander in to gawk, but he'd created them so that they would recognize sympathy in someone who really _wanted_ to enter.

When they opened the door, the first person Ginny saw was Hermione. She stood with her eyes tightly shut and her hands clenched, as though she didn't want anyone to see her crying. Then Ginny's gaze went over Hermione's head and to the body on a cot in the middle of the room.

Absurdly, her first thought was, _They could have cleaned his face. _It still bore trails of blood.

Then she came closer, telling herself that it was probably because Peter thought such decisions should be left up to Parvati or Harry, and forced herself to look at his silent face.

He was smiling. Were people supposed to be smiling when they died? Of course, the only dead people Ginny had ever seen close at hand had died in battle—including Percy, really, of a thorn through the heart—and so she had no experience with someone who knew his death was coming and had time to arrange his face however he liked.

Ron made a choking sound beside her. Ginny reached out and clasped his hand, without looking away from Connor.

She'd had a varying relationship with him, really. The first two years she was in school, she hadn't liked him much. And then he was suddenly a Triwizard champion, and he'd won the Cup. After that, he was all right, her slightly older brother's best friend, prone to taking part in the pranks Ron played on her. But he didn't always agree with Ron when he and Ginny had arguments, and he'd come up to Ginny on occasion and told her that he appreciated her supporting Harry when the school turned against him and when half the world appeared to want him dead for denouncing Dumbledore.

So he'd been—a friend. Ginny didn't consider him a friend in the same way Hermione had been, or Neville, but he had always been there. And, as Ron said, she had never given a thought to his dying. He could be captured, but Voldemort would keep him alive to torment Harry, and he would come back in the end.

And now he was gone.

"It's just not _fair_," Hermione whispered.

For all her own unfairness, Ginny found herself nodding. Connor should have lived longer. He shouldn't have suffered before he died. He should have had more of a chance to be Parvati's husband than he did. All sorts of things should have happened differently.

_But would I want that, if it meant that Harry died instead?_

Ginny shifted uncomfortably. Her mind tended to work like that in the last few months, taking situations she should feel simply about and twisting them around to look at from different angles. She could even understand her parents' desire to protect her better than she had at first, even though she intended to ignore their desperate advice and go on to be an Auror in the new Ministry. But she didn't think it was right to talk about this right now, when Ron was mourning his best friend and Hermione was mourning someone who had been _a_ friend, if not as close to her in the last few years as he had been during their first few.

Hermione at last bent over and gave Connor a kiss on a part of his cheek that was free of blood, and then turned and left the room. Ron reached out, slowly, and grasped Connor's shoulder. He squeezed so hard, Ginny saw his knuckles turn white. The silence was so thick it choked all the words in her throat.

"I'm going to miss you, mate," Ron said at last, and if that wasn't as full a mourning as Ginny thought would be good for him, it was much better than the brooding he'd done in the hall.

She reached out, for her part, and flicked the fringe on his forehead away, exposing the heart-shaped scar. That was the scar that had once announced him as the Boy-Who-Lived, and which she had stared at even after she knew that wasn't true, in wonder that a curse could have carved something so perfectly shaped.

"Goodbye," she said softly.

More words would have to come later. Ron was on the verge of a breakdown, so Ginny put an arm around her brother's shoulders and led him away.

_Care for the living first, because they need it more than the dead._

Yes, sometimes Ginny really didn't like her own mind.

* * *

Rita smiled slowly. There were advantages to persistence—or perhaps for staying away for two days after Voldemort's defeat and then asking, politely, for an interview. She'd been admitted to Silver-Mirror. Now she waited in the same anteroom where Harry had once made her wait, surreptitiously using an Aura-Reader that looked like another quill to check the level of magical power in the house. If Harry had been Voldemort's magical heir, as she'd started to suspect, then his strength should surely have increased.

Draco Malfoy walked through the door in the opposite wall.

Rita quickly dropped the Aura-Reader into her pocket and gave him a majestic nod, sitting back in her chair. "Mr. Malfoy," she said. "I'm glad you've decided to talk to me. The wizarding public of Britain deserves to know what happened to the Dark Lord so many of them were frightened of, don't you agree?"

Malfoy's smile was slow, too, and sparked with winter. He regarded her as if she were an insect—which, while it might be her Animagus form, didn't mean Rita couldn't occasionally be human—and shook his head. "What makes you assume that they deserve to know?" he asked. "Or that they shouldn't be asked to wait another few days, when Harry feels well enough to tell them himself?"

"I assumed he _did_ feel well enough to tell them himself," said Rita mildly, while her instincts began to scream at her. _Harry was wounded? How? How bad was it? _"I thought I would be talking to him."

"You should have asked beforehand." Malfoy's cold smile remained, but his eyes were distant, which made him look bored. "You'll be talking to me, and you can accept my words or leave now."

_An interview with his partner is better than nothing. And if their words don't match, that's an article in and of itself. _"I have no aversion to talking to you, Mr. Malfoy," Rita said, and readied her quill. "First, of course, the question everyone wants to know the answer to. Is You-Know-Who really dead?"

"He is." Malfoy continued to look at her from behind his mask. "So you might as well print his full name, and not that ridiculous moniker. He can't come back and hurt you."

"Malfoy," Rita chided, even as she scribbled. "You know, of course, that it will take some time to sink in."

"Then why did you want an interview today, instead of waiting for a time when people could be more rational?"

Rita shook her head. _He would make a terrible reporter. No sense of what the public needs, at all. _"And was Harry wounded in the battle? Is that the reason no one's seen him since then?"

"Harry is physically whole," said Malfoy, and now his smile was very obviously just a carved line in snow. "But he lost his brother in the battle. He deserves the time to recover from that, don't you think? As much time as he wants."

"I was unaware Connor Potter was dead," Rita said, though she had heard some confused rumors to that effect. Of course, all the reporters who'd tried to gain entrance to the Black house in the past two days had been summarily removed by Severus Snape or Peter Pettigrew, so the rumors had amounted to no one seeing Potter so far. "What happened to him?"

"He died nobly, fighting to keep the world from Voldemort." Malfoy's eyes were focused on her now, but every word was touched with mockery.

"Some more detail than _that_ would be appreciated," Rita commented. She didn't know how to construct an article out of the scattered bits of nothing Malfoy was giving her. Oh, she could if she _must_, but in a situation like this, when the meat of the matter had to be rich and thick and full? She didn't want scraps.

"You won't get it until and unless Harry feels like telling you." Malfoy gave a slow lizard's blink. "He probably will. He'd want his brother to be honored for his sacrifice. But, for now, those are the two pieces of information that most matter: his brother is dead, and so is Voldemort. Those should explain well enough why Harry doesn't feel like celebrating, I would think." He turned his back on her, as if the interview were done, and started to walk towards the door he came in by.

Rita rapped her quill against her notebook. If Harry had been there, she would have been gentler, but then, Harry would have told her more. She decided it could do no harm to remind Malfoy that the public was not interested in Harry as a _person_, or his brother, either, but as fighters. They would ultimately be more sympathetic to Harry if they could swallow the truth whole. "Mr. Malfoy, not everyone will be as kind as I am. In the absence of information, some of the papers are printing lies." She softened her voice when he turned around and stared at her. "Doesn't it make more sense to give me your perspective on the story _now_, so that the _Daily Prophet_ can spread the truth instead of rumors? I'm assuming you must know everything Harry does, since you're so close to him." _A little judicious flattery never hurt._

Malfoy snorted at her, and then drew his wand. Rita fumbled for her own, but Malfoy had already murmured two words. She thought one of them was _Exsculpo_, but didn't hear the other. A purple-red beam of light struck her and then faded into the faint touch of a chill wind along her skin.

"What did you do to me?" Her voice was unfortunately shrill.

"A variation on a spell Harry invented." Malfoy shrugged at her. "He created it to turn people inside out. _I_ simply altered it so that it'll turn you inside out if you write anything more than the bare facts into your article."

Rita shivered, and resisted the urge to hug herself. She would have thought he was lying, or joking, but the cold smile was back, and he watched her with eyes that were empty.

"I can't always control what the _Prophet_ edits my articles into," she said weakly.

"Then I would tell them you didn't learn enough to write a worthwhile article." Malfoy put his wand carefully back in his robe pocket. "Just to be safe, you understand."

With an effort, Rita met his eyes. "Harry wouldn't like your using that spell," she said.

"Harry and I are two very different people." Rita had heard Lucius Malfoy speak in the past weeks about his candidacy for the office of Minister. His son's voice gave even fewer hints of emotion away than his had. "I use—more direct methods than he does. And he'll doubtless disapprove, but we'll argue, and that's all. I will risk an argument over protecting him." One blond eyebrow arched. "I would risk much more than that, Skeeter, just in case you think about trying to get around this spell somehow."

Rita slowed her breathing. _Well_. The tale that Harry's partner had cursed her for daring to speak the truth would make nearly as good an article as the one about what had really happened in the final battle. She turned to leave. She didn't see that she and Malfoy had anything more to say to each other.

Malfoy coughed, and, when she looked, his smile had widened. "And, Skeeter?"

She frowned at him.

"There's a spell on the door that won't let you tell anyone about the magic I used on you, or, in fact, any magic performed in this house." The smile widened a bit more, and now the gray eyes saw her all too well. "Just in case you need an extra incentive to respect Harry's privacy. Good day."

* * *

Harry opened his eyes and blinked at the ceiling. There was a moment of pure white bliss, soft and pale as the pillows and blankets containing him, before his memories rushed back and put Connor in his head.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He missed his twin like part of his mind, but he had known he would, and that hadn't stopped him from climbing back into sanity.

"Good morning."

Harry looked again. Draco leaned against the bedroom door, watching him carefully. He straightened up when he met Harry's gaze, but didn't relax. He looked almost feral in his desire to protect, Harry thought.

_Well, I'll let him indulge that. _For once, Harry was in the mood to be protected.

"What do you want?" Draco asked softly.

"Breakfast in bed," said Harry. "And then another nap." He thought of asking how long it had been since the beach, what people in the outer world were saying about him, and whether everyone believed that Voldemort was dead, and then decided all that could wait. If there was ever a time in his life when he would earn complete privacy and the right to leave people to their own devices, it was now. They would get along without him. They'd managed it for centuries before he was born, and they'd manage it for centuries after he died. One person just wasn't that important in the grand scheme of things. "A nap with you."

Draco gave him a flashing smile, and then stepped forward. He wore no smile when he kissed Harry, gently, returning the kiss that Harry had given him as they were about to depart Silver-Mirror for Godric's Hollow.

"Good," Draco breathed against his lips. "I'll bring you toast and eggs and pumpkin juice. Sound tasty?"

"Yes," Harry said, and snuggled back into the blankets as Draco vanished out the door.

He lay there, and remembered how to breathe, and remembered Connor, and hoped the breakfast would be good.


	102. A Silver Splendour, A Flame

**Warning**The last scene here (but only the last scene) contains _very_ heavy slash. As usual, please feel free not to read it if you think you'll be offended.

Also, this is another non-linear chapter, every "present-time" scene alternating with one from the past month or so, as Harry prepares for the Walpurgis ritual.

The chapter title once again comes from "Hymn to Proserpine" (the last one that does): "White rose of the rose-white water, a silver splendour, a flame,/ Bent down unto us that besought her, and earth grew sweet with her name."

**Chapter Eighty-Two: A Silver Splendour, A Flame**

Harry grimaced as he smeared the oil across his hands. It was necessary, as a preparation for the Walpurgis ritual he and Draco would share later that night, but _Merlin_, it smelled strong.

It had to be put on in any case, however—at least in every place but the middle of his back, which Draco would cover for him. For now, Harry took a deep breath, sneezed at the scent of frankincense, and began to wipe the clear oil carefully over his face. It would dry and cling in a very light mask by the time he was done, and then he need only be careful not to move too fast, which would crack it.

Harry was sure the Silver Splendor and Flame, the third Walpurgis rite he and Draco would share, and the ninth of the thirteen courting rituals, _had_ to be the strangest one.

* * *

Harry stood quietly in the entrance to Silver-Mirror, and did his best not to show how intimidated he was to the reporters gathered on the grass in front of his house and staring at him. He had thought it better to invite everyone at once—the reporters for minor newspapers as well as the _Vox Populi_ and the _Prophet_—so that of the dozens of questions that could be asked, and the dozens of replies he would need to give, at least he would not be asked the elementary ones more than once.

But he hadn't anticipated how many people would be interested in his news of the defeat of Voldemort. Draco had told him that the wizarding world had held off on celebrations so far, out of uncertainty that Voldemort was actually dead. That had increased Harry's determination to give this press conference a week after his brother died. If he hesitated too log, panic might start spreading.

Draco hadn't been happy about it, but after a short argument that had resulted in a heated snog, he was resigned to the fact that Harry wanted to do this. He learned against the door of Silver-Mirror anyway, eyes cool as he regarded the reporters.

Harry coughed, and the whole gathering turned its eyes to him. Harry felt a moment's disorientation. He hadn't done anything like this since he fell off the mountain. The Ministry gatherings and other public occasions had always relied on the pureblood dances, and there, he could be confident, because the knowledge still existed in his head even after the suspension of his emotions cracked. But this—this, he would have to use his readings of people and the situation for rather than dances.

_I don't like this._

Nevertheless, he put on his best Slytherin smile and said, "Thank you for coming. I know you must be very curious about what happened in the final moment when we defeated Voldemort."

He and Draco had argued about the pronoun, too. Draco thought he should say "I." Harry refused, because, to his mind, Connor was just as much a part of Voldemort's death as he was. Draco had stood down when Harry grew upset enough to use his magic to shake and crack the walls.

He won his share of their debates, too—what Harry should wear for this announcement, for example, and exactly how many political gatherings he should attend in the next few months—but he could read Harry well enough to know when something was really important to him. Harry half-thought he'd argued this time because he thought it expected of him, as Harry's partner and as someone who hadn't liked Connor much when he was alive.

_He seems to have changed his mind, a bit, now that he's dead._

"Mr. Black?"

With a start, Harry realized he'd been collecting Kneazles in his thoughts, while the reporters waited for him to say something about Voldemort's defeat. He took a deep breath and herded the Kneazles into line, then lifted his chin proudly. _Connor would want me to do this. I can't run away from my responsibilities. He certainly didn't._

"The Dark Lord was immortal," he said, which attracted several gasps from the listeners. Otherwise, everyone seemed much more interested in what he was saying than their own reactions, which caused Harry to cough again. _You can be nervous, _whispered a voice in his head that sounded like Snape's, _just as long as you never show them you're nervous. _"His immortality depended on several enchanted objects that guarded pieces of his life-force." He'd chosen the wording on that carefully. "Soul" might have said "Horcrux" to someone, and the last thing Harry wanted was to deal with this problem over again. Fighting three Dark Lords was enough for any one lifetime. "Unfortunately, destroying each enchanted object required a willing sacrifice, thanks to an Unassailable Curse Voldemort had cast." He wasn't going to mention wrestling the soul-shards, either. He was tired of people thinking he was Dark simply because of his actions, and the second-to-last thing he needed, next to a second Voldemort, was someone assuming a soul-shard had managed to possess him.

"Several noble people died to fulfill those conditions," he said quietly. "Narcissa Malfoy." Draco shifted beside him—small, but it was enough to tell Harry what he was feeling. Harry reached out and squeezed his arm without looking away from the reporters. "Minerva McGonagall, during the collapse of Hogwarts. Regulus Black. Henrietta Bulstrode." He wondered for a moment how many people would disagree with calling Henrietta noble, and then told himself that was just a distraction to keep from speaking the last name. "Connor Potter."

Several more gasps sounded, and Rita Skeeter called out, "Is it true that Voldemort kidnapped your brother, Mr. Black?"

Harry nodded. "He did. He intended to make me come to him and give up my life out of despair." It was odd to remember that he might have done it, too. But then again, the events of those two days—the spring equinox and the day that followed, during which he'd been nightmaring, witnessing Henrietta's sacrifice, brewing the Switching Potion, and approaching Voldemort's lair—felt like disjointed pieces of another life, save for the bright point of pain that was Connor's death. "But instead, I went armed, and Connor died willingly, and then I defeated Voldemort."

"What proof is there of this?" A tall woman with keen brown eyes leaned forward. "Forgive me, Mr. Black, but we only have a lack of Dark activity to tell us that You-Know-Who is dead—and we've had that for the last several months, too."

That question, Harry had expected, and it made him feel a bit more confident about the way he might handle the rest of the conference. He lifted an eyebrow, and then snapped his fingers together.

The tall woman ducked as a streak of fire manifested in the air above her head, and then turned itself inside out to reveal Voldemort's body dangling there as if on a thread. Now the gasps were mostly noises of disgust; Harry heard more than one person retching. He didn't know why. Voldemort hadn't died bloodily.

Of course, perhaps he had underestimated the impact of a noseless face and empty eyesockets on people not used to facing Voldemort in their dreams and in battles several times a year.

"There he is," Harry said. He hadn't summoned the body. He'd had it ready, hanging invisibly in the air, but his magic had made it look showier. Harry saw less wrong with that than he used to. "Would you like to look at him more closely, madam? That can be arranged."

The woman cringed, but didn't back down. Harry found himself liking her. "How do we know that's the real thing?"

Harry shrugged. "Are you going to trust my word that I defeated him? What other proof would convince you? You cannot _prove_ a negative, so I cannot _prove_ he's not out there still." He watched unsympathetically as someone else was sick and a few people closed their eyes and swayed on their feet. _Better they understand this now, so they won't plague me for impossible things when I have more important tasks to accomplish. _"But I will say that he isn't. This is the real body." He nudged Voldemort's corpse, and it spun as if on a string.

"Why hasn't it been burned?" Melinda Honeywhistle complained. Harry would have recognized her nasal tone anywhere.

"If I did that, I would surely be accused of having a fake." Harry gave her a sharp-edged smile and swept the body towards her. "Would _you_ like to be the brave one who examines it, Madam Honeywhistle?"

"No, I—" She turned her head away, flinching.

Harry shook his head. He had learned that nothing he could do would content everyone; that lesson still burned in his stomach like the cut of a sickle, after Connor. So he would keep the body a few more days and then burn it at sunrise.

He told them that plan, and they clucked like chickens, some approving the plan, a few objecting. Harry invited the objectors to examine the body. They all declined, but said that _someone_ should. Harry asked for names of their preferred candidates. Other than one malicious rival who nominated Honeywhistle, no one said anything. Harry nodded and hid the body behind magic again. He didn't miss the way most people subtly relaxed when it was gone.

And that was his attitude for the rest of the press conference: tell them the truth, offer proof where he had it, and ignore questions that he couldn't have answered to their satisfaction _anyway_. Several departed with a gleam in their eyes that said he would have their articles biting at his heels soon. Harry felt almost relieved. If the defeat of Voldemort had transformed him into the darling of the press, he would have felt even less like he was living his own life than he already did.

* * *

Harry finally finished smearing the oil everywhere except the middle of his back, and corked the vial, setting it aside. That wasn't the end of the preparations, of course. He waited a few minutes for the newest oil to dry, then turned slowly to examine the robes on the end of the bed.

Draco had had them made. No courting partner could enter the Silver Splendor and Flame wearing anything but those clothes their partner had given them as gifts. Thus Harry would have the silver ring that Draco had given him as a gift of intention during the first ritual—

And these.

The cloth was deep black, which unexpectedly flamed blue in the light when Harry cast a _Lumos_ charm. It made for heavy but comfortable robes, and Harry didn't think they would scratch his skin. His real problem was with the symbols in silver and golden thread stitched all over the hem and sleeves and collar. He had taken the trouble to look them up.

That had resulted in _another_ argument with Draco. They spent a lot of their time lately doing that, as if to make up for all the years when each fight had been a devastating blow.

Harry could accept the variation on the Black crest that said he was the head of the family now, and the spread-winged raven that each Dark heir was entitled to, and the charging unicorn that Britain's last potential _vates_ had borne. He objected more to the sun in the arms of the crescent moon, a symbol Draco had taken from the Pact's seal, and which he was using to mean "Lord-level wizard," and the forms of all the various magical species he had freed. Harry didn't want it to seem as if he _ruled_ over those species, which he certainly did not. And he'd objected most of all to the small golden crest on the front of his collar. The only good thing about it was that his chin would, mostly, cover it if he kept his head bowed.

It was the Potter family crest.

* * *

Harry came face-to-face with Parvati for the first time since Connor's death when he walked out of his room. He didn't think she'd been waiting for him, and he hadn't sought her out. He'd simply been walking in the upper hallway, trying to convince himself that he _needed_ to see someone other than Draco, and then she turned the corner.

They both stopped. Harry braced one hand on the wall and met her eyes gravely. Parvati slowly inclined her head to him.

"No one else will tell me what happened," she said.

Harry grimaced. Part of that was meant to shield her, no doubt, but it had also come about because no one else _knew_ what happened, not for certain. And she had the right to know how her husband had died.

"Come with me," he said quietly, and led her down the corridor towards a room that he knew about as head of the Black family, and which the wards would let him extend the knowledge of to Parvati, since she'd married his brother. All the way, he chided himself for the trembling weakness in his muscles. He hadn't fallen from a height or hurt himself in the battle with Voldemort. Why should he feel as if he would like to go back to bed and draw the blankets over his head?

It had to be the conversation with Parvati, and nothing else, and that was silly. If she wished to hate him, that was her right. Harry had changed enough not to accept condemnation from everyone as justified, but Parvati—she had a right, a position with him now, that no one else in the world did.

The room's door opened when Harry passed his hand just above the stone that shielded it. Beyond, the walls swelled into a sudden glory of green and blue, silver and red and gold. Parvati halted and stared in astonishment. Harry felt his cheeks warm. The walls showed stars from common constellations, but so close at hand that one could see their true colors. He hadn't brought her here to _impress_ her, just to insure their privacy.

"Please," he said, and gestured to the chairs in the middle of the room, small white things that were easy to forget in the domination of starlight. "Sit."

Parvati did, though she stretched her head back to get a glimpse of Orion sparkling overhead. Harry turned his own chair to face hers; ordinarily, they were meant to orient away from one another, to give the two people the room could accommodate a better chance to view the stars.

Parvati didn't examine the walls or ceiling long. Her gaze rested on him, and her hands clasped together in her lap so hard that she uttered a little gasp of pain. "Now," she said. "Please tell me, Harry."

And Harry did, from the details of how Connor had become a Horcrux—or how he guessed that Connor had become a Horcrux—until the moment when Connor gave his life away. Parvati shut her eyes halfway through, and tears dripped down her cheeks with enough regularity that Harry had to fight to keep his own voice steady. By the end, Parvati had given up every pretense of control and was weeping softly.

Harry hesitated, then moved over beside her and put an arm around her shoulders. He wasn't sure she would welcome it, but she turned around and hung on with frightening strength.

"He had a chance to live," she whispered. "He would have died _anyway_ if you hadn't brewed that potion, and you could have left him like that, asked him to die for you without trying to remove the soul-shard, and he would have done it. But you tried to save him, and then—and then he gave it up." Her head rested against his chest for a moment. Harry stroked her hair. "I thought I'd hate you for that, Harry," she said. "But I can't. You tried. You didn't kill him. He killed himself."

Harry just nodded. He felt, as he mostly had not since he climbed back into sanity, that he should have died. If Connor could have been with Parvati again, perhaps it would have been worth it.

And then he thought of Draco, and winced. One bad part of being human and in the midst of his emotions was that his ability to hide from himself had considerably diminished.

But even that he could not regret, since it was so essential to his path as _vates._

At last, Parvati pulled away from him, and wiped her tears with a semblance of dignity. Relieved, Harry took his chair again, and locked his eyes with hers before she could look away. "You know that anything you need, you may come to me for," he said quietly. "You're my sister-in-law. And, of course, I think that you may fall heir to the Potter estates, since you took Connor's name—"

Parvati closed her eyes and shook her head. "No," she said quietly. "The ritual we used—it doesn't bind us like that, because most of the time, the married couple have siblings who are still alive. It was rebellious younger brothers and sisters who used it most often, not heirs." She gave a small smile. "And I think the vaults and the lands and Lux Aeterna should be kept intact, Harry. Give them to someone whom you think is worthy to become the adopted legal heir of the Potter line. Or maybe someone can be your magical heir, or you'll find a Potter relative still alive."

Harry felt a hope he'd not even admitted he'd borne die. "You're not pregnant, then."

"No," Parvati said, opening her eyes. "I used the spells on myself when I first woke from my grief. I didn't conceive. The estates have gone dormant, Harry, the way they always do in a situation like this, and connected themselves to you."

"Dormant?" Harry hadn't encountered the term.

Parvati smiled, but there was a tinge of pity to the expression. "James Potter did no favor in rearing you ignorant of your Light pureblood heritage," she murmured. "Yes, Harry, that happens when an heir dies and hasn't designated a replacement—or he has, but the replacement is someone who's separated himself from the line, as you did by rejecting the Potter name. The estate, the vaults, and any magic attached search for the nearest possible relative, or the 'heir of the heart' of the family head, and attach themselves to him—or her, of course. You can't use the Potter lands, properly speaking, but you'll hold them in trust for the next heir, and they won't respond to anyone else in the meantime. And you'll be in charge of finding and training that heir."

Harry nodded quietly. He had anticipated that for the Black line, and this was just another thing to add.

"I would have liked to see—a niece or nephew," he said.

"So would I," said Parvati. "Invite me to the adoption ceremonies when you find someone who suits, Harry. Though my right to be there is mostly formal, I would like to meet that child, and get to know him or her."

Harry reached out and took her wrist firmly. "So far as I am concerned, you're my sister," he said. "You will be welcome whenever you choose to come."

Parvati leaned forward, brushed her lips against his cheek, and then left him there.

* * *

Harry fastened the robes carefully, scowled one more time at the Potter crest, and shook his head. Draco had told him the symbol didn't change even if one merely held dormant estates and vaults in trust for the next heir. A lot of shouting had left his partner unmoved. Harry huffed under his breath, and began the next step in his preparations.

Draco had told him he had to "do something" with his hair. Harry had imagined a glamour that would make it appear less messy.

That wasn't what the ritual required.

Harry resignedly eyed the silver circlet—torque, Draco had insisted on calling it, though Harry didn't think that was correct—that would hold his hair back. He would have to use spells to make it lie flat, and probably to hold the torque in place.

_Why did I agree to a three-year joining dance, again? Or, at least, why didn't I read up on the rituals first?_

He knew the answer, of course. At the time, reading about it would be to admit to its happening, and Harry hadn't wanted to admit that. He had still been, in his heart, more than half the humble servant, and less than half the person who wanted to join with Draco.

_But I'm not the only one who's changed, _he thought, as he picked up the torque and stared into the mirror. _And if my father can make such an effort, so can I._

* * *

Harry and Draco had said they would attend Lucius's latest speech in pursuit of the office of the Ministry together—it was attend all of the candidates' speeches or attend none, in Draco's opinion—but Draco had excused himself with a murmured apology. Harry didn't mind. Draco needed to circulate on his own, to exchange winks and nods and words with those who were fast becoming his contacts in the world of Ministry politics, and to establish himself as firmly outside Harry's shadow. And Lucius's, come to that, though Harry thought that rather more likely to be already in place.

He ended up watching Lucius's speech while leaning against a wall. Lucius had chosen Diagon Alley as the site, and established a small platform in front of Gringotts. Harry had to admire the symbolism. Lucius wanted it to seem as if he had nothing against nonhumans. He wouldn't be so crass as to claim that the goblins supported him, of course, but he would try to use a silent language to bolster his actual words, and have the best of both the magical creatures and the humans who didn't want them in the Ministry.

The seventh of May had been chosen for the election, and it was the fourth of April now. Harry was rather looking forward to the election. He'd had a quiet word with Syrinx, and the Gloryflower artisans were at work enlarging the ranks of the golden voting owls. Harry wanted to see Lucius's expression when he found out why.

"Harry."

He glanced up in surprise. His father stood next to his shoulder and stared down at him. Harry straightened with a small nod. It was true he hadn't spent much time in Snape's company since Connor died, but then, Snape himself seemed occupied, brooding over Regulus and more concerned with Harry's state of sanity and health than discussing what had happened to Connor. And Harry wanted to think of his brother's death when he didn't have something else he _must_ spend time on, because he still needed to turn and settle it in his mind, and find a place for all his grief.

"Walk with me," Snape said.

Harry nodded again, and followed him deeper into the crowd. Few people noticed him going, since he had tamped down on his magic and wrapped a Notice-Me-Not Charm around himself. Perhaps someone did and would anticipate it as a political commentary on Lucius's speech, but Harry had finally begun to realize he couldn't control everyone's perceptions of his minor actions.

Snape guided him almost to the end of Diagon Alley, and the entrance that led to Muggle London. He halted outside the Leaky Cauldron's back wall. Harry looked up at him and waited.

"I have not been sure what to say about the death of your brother," Snape began quietly.

Harry nodded. Other families might have rushed together at once, extending sympathy and condolences. And his relationship with Draco was like that, because they understood each other well enough that Draco knew what kind of sympathies to extend. But he and Snape had always trod on a more formal footing. Snape would have wanted to wait until he _was_ sure what to say.

"You know I didn't like him."

"Yes, I know," Harry said calmly. He was no longer in that state of mind where hearing anyone disparage Connor cut him to the bone. He hadn't been since the first three days he spent solely in Draco's company, when Draco had talked almost solely of Connor's virtues. "But you agreed to train him in dueling nonetheless, and you put up with him when you could have hurt him badly, and for that, I'll be grateful forever, sir."

Snape gave a small shake of his head. "I was not trying to create excuses for my behavior, Harry. I wanted to explain why I took so long to consider his sacrifice in the proper light."

Harry cocked his head. "Isn't even that sort of an excuse for your behavior, sir?"

Snape glared at him. Harry smiled back. No, his relationship with his father would never be perfect. He didn't care. He had once thought he had the perfect parents, perfect in their attendance to the duties needed to save the world. If he never thought that again, he would be happy.

"I have been angry with you, as well," Snape continued, "for going into Voldemort's lair intending only to die, and for imprisoning us when you know we would have stood beside you."

Harry shifted from foot to foot. This was something Draco hadn't approached him about; he seemed to feel the death of his brother had punished Harry enough for his mad plan. But, of course, it would come up with Snape.

"You would have prevented me from doing what I intended to do," said Harry quietly. "It was especially pertinent that I get rid of you, since you would have recognized the Switching Potion."

"Yes, I would have tried to prevent your death," said Snape. "And I will not think myself in the wrong for that."

"I don't think you should." Harry ran his hand through his hair, and wished, for a moment, for the confidence that had led him to confront Snape after Regulus's death and pull him out of his grief. Of course, _then_, he had been sure he was in the right and Snape in the wrong. It wasn't easy when the shoe sat so heavily on the other foot. "But I didn't care, at that moment, about what you might think, or Draco, or Peter—or Connor. I didn't mean to give him a choice, you know. I drank the Switching Potion before I told him what would happen to the Horcrux. He was the one who made the choice to take it back and then swallow the h-healing potion."

_Fuck_, his eyes were tearing up. Harry took a deep breath and held them shut for a moment. He would not suppress his emotions with Occlumency again, but that didn't mean he wanted to tear up whenever he thought of his brother.

"What made you care so little?" Snape demanded. "I have never known you that deficient in consideration for others, Harry."

"I know," Harry whispered, and sought for words to explain it. But, at the last, only the truth would do. "I was insane at the time, sir. And I thought I had done everything I could for you, and I owed Connor my life and the chance for he, himself, to live. Dying was the only way I could think of to accomplish that."

Snape's hands closed on his shoulders with surprising force, and pulled him into his arms. Harry stumbled, but went. Snape held him there, in an embrace too tight to be comfortable, and hissed into his ear.

"None of us will ever be done with you, Harry. Do you understand me?"

Harry shut his eyes and nodded. A current of clear mourning ran through his head, mingled with a strange kind of pity. When his emotions first awakened and his magic shook off the phoenix web, he had been angry at Connor for having so much of their parents' attention and affection. Now, though, he had to wonder if his brother had ever been loved like this.

_He was. By me. The way he died suggests he knew that. I hope he did._

"Thank you," he said, his voice muffled against Snape's robe. His arms rose and snaked around Snape's middle.

"For scolding you?" Snape sounded frustrated with himself. "I meant to explain myself, Harry, not excoriate you."

"For loving me," Harry said. "For being my father."

There was a pause, and then Snape's hands relaxed on his shoulders a bit. "Well." His voice was the soft one Harry had often heard him use around his potions when the slightest bit of noise would disturb their brewing. "I can live with that, I think."

* * *

The torque was as in-place as it was going to get. Harry shoved at it with the heel of his hand, and then growled under his breath. _When they designed these rituals, didn't they ever think about people with messy hair? The ancient wizards must have all looked like Draco, for as much consideration as they gave me._

Torque—given from Draco's hand—done, it was time for him to call the tame slice of the Dark that powered this ritual. Harry shook his head even as he held out his hands. He didn't quite believe that a joining dance was powerful or interesting enough to attract the attention of the Dark, but it seemed so. On the night when it raged wildest, a slice of it would come to the courting couple, if called, and make the magic that bound them what it was.

_Rather like a shard of Voldemort's soul—_

Harry cut the thought off with a jab of his mind, and then whistled. He felt the calm, cool attention of a, well, of a something that grew more and more excited as it examined his mind. And then it burst into existence above his palms, a shimmering trail of dusty darkness edged with silver. Harry touched it, and felt soft warmth, like rotting meat, bathe his hands.

Except for the silver dogs-head, of course. Harry had to look at that in resignation. It remained cold, and always would.

* * *

Harry had had to get away from the celebrations. It seemed that most of the wizarding world _did_ believe Voldemort dead, after all, and they had thrown festival after festival until Harry's mouth hurt from smiling.

And no one who was outside his immediate circle seemed to care about the _death_ that it took to achieve it all.

It was as his own private compact with death and mourning, in a way, that Harry went to the Forbidden Forest one night in the middle of April. He carried a hooked branch with thorns on it, and he carried much more knowledge of the web in question than he had the first time he went, and he carried Blood-Replenishing Potions so he wouldn't lose his life there in the darkness.

And beside him walked Draco.

Draco had said nothing when Harry intimated that he wanted to free thestrals again. He had simply looked at Harry with bright eyes, and then reached over and put a hand on his forehead that felt as if it could strike down as easily as bless. Then he had said, "I'm coming with you."

Harry nodded. "I would expect nothing less of you," he said. "I _need_ someone to help me with the Blood-Replenishing Potions. I want to free two thestrals at least this time, but the chains are so long that I'd die before I could shed all the blood necessary to cover and melt them."

"The way you almost did last time," said Draco, in a voice nearly without malice.

Harry inclined his head.

So they had come to the Forbidden Forest, after promising Snape that he could come after them if they weren't back by midnight. The days were getting longer, but there were still hours of darkness before then, and a wintry chill in the air which Harry found appropriate, given their place and their purpose. He walked until he heard the _taps_ of hooves sounding beside him, and turned to face the thestrals trotting towards him, their tails high.

A mare and a foal, he saw at once, and they halted and sniffed when he saw them. Harry could not communicate with them as easily as he had before, now that his phoenix song was gone, but having taken the web and the chain off the stallion, he thought he could do it a second time.

He bared his left arm. His right hand held the thorns that were necessary to cut his skin and shed the blood. The mare at once came towards him, tail flinging itself about like a flag. The foal crowded close to her, halfway, Harry thought, between the innocence that afflicted young magical creatures who'd never seen a wizard and nervousness about what these strange beings might do.

Harry knelt, and examined the web and the chain flowing about their hooves. Draco drew one deep breath, as if he could see them himself. Maybe he could. Then his hand landed in Harry's hair, and latched tight.

_Reminding me of what I could lose, if I insisted on falling so far into the web-breaking that I died to free the thestrals. _Harry appreciated it. He would have reached up and clasped Draco's hand back if he didn't need both of his for the blood-drawing. As it was, he had to use his magic to lightly, warmly caress Draco's fingers, and hope that would be enough.

A deep breath, and then he drew the bough down his arm.

Blood shed willingly, blood shed with thorns. The first drop made two links of the cold blue chain around the mare and her foal whirl apart into steam, with a slight hiss that was echoed by an ecstatic snort from the mare. It occupied the whole of his mind, and for the first time in nearly a week, Harry found that he could think of something else than how annoyed he was at people calling him a hero.

_I did what I had to. Connor was the real hero, the one who made a decision he didn't have to make._

But here, _here_ was the work he'd dedicated himself to, not the work prophecies and fate and the hour of his birth had compelled him into, and so he dragged the thorns over and over again through his skin, parting it into ragged slivers and runnels of liquid, and the mare and the foal danced around each other as the chain lifted from their hooves and their necks.

When Harry grew exhausted, he stopped, panting, and leaned against Draco. Draco used his hold in Harry's hair to force a Blood-Replenishing Potion more easily down his throat. Harry gulped, and grimaced a bit at the foul taste, and nodded his thanks to Draco as he moved forward again. Apart from anything else, the support of Draco's hip and thigh against his cheek kept him much warmer and more braced than he'd been the first time he did this.

When he got close in under the mare's belly, she whuffled at his hair and then bent her neck over his shoulder and between his arms to lick at the blood flowing from his wounds. Harry let her do it. The foal wanted a taste, too, and so he rested for a moment, touching the cold, slick short fur. The foal wriggled against him, seeming to have entirely lost its fear. At least when Harry set them free, they would have no cause to fear wizards again.

On and on and on, until Harry fell into a kind of trance where he dragged and cut and dripped, and only paused every now and then for a drink from one of the vials Draco held. It seemed almost anticlimactic when the final chains disappeared from the pair, and Harry could swallow the remains of their web with his _absorbere_ gift. It tore like rotten silk, and left two more thestrals free.

The mare reared high, and her wings turned white. Harry blinked, lifting a hand to shield his eyes. The foal whirled around its mother, snorting and stamping and squealing, and Harry heard a sound like enormous gates of ivory swinging open.

He had expected the mare to mimic the stallion's strange transformation, rearranging her bones, but, he supposed, there was no reason to expect that. Thestrals seemed to be individual creatures, as different from one another as house elves, not a hive like the Many.

The white light whirled like a whip through the Forest, or like the wheel of diamond shards he had used to cut Evan Rosier's face apart. Harry felt the trees shivering in the wake of the enormous _boom_ that accompanied its traveling, and lowered his arm to stare in silent disbelief at the burned area where the mare had been.

The foal capered for a moment, then stopped and bowed its head. A moment later, it, too, combusted in white flames that burned bright as magnesium before collapsing on each other.

In the silence that followed, Harry heard Draco swallow heavily and say, "I suppose you know best about what to do, since you're _vates_, Harry, but it's bloody creepy sometimes."

* * *

It was time now, and Harry went to the entrance of Silver-Mirror where Draco would be awaiting him. The others had all left for the Walpurgis Dance already—well, at least those who were Dark had—and it had felt decidedly strange not to go. Harry could feel the wild Dark pulling at him, calling him on to the frenzied noise of music and movement of feet. He would be welcome there, it promised him, and it would be more than happy to help him forget.

But the small shard of tame Dark drifting around him helped him forget its mad cousin's invitation. It draped like a stole on his shoulders now, and licked his face with a tongue full of maggots. Harry wiped them off, and nodded to Draco, who waited with a calm expression on his face.

Not that he hadn't fussed when Harry bought pale robes for him, because he had. Harry didn't care. The robes were the color of marble, and made Draco's hair and eyes look exotic, and suited him. He'd bought the golden torque, too, which was almost lost in the ash-blond of Draco's hair, and which complemented the golden Portkey bracelet on his wrist. It was Harry's small revenge, that Draco looked like a creature of the Light this Walpurgis.

_And, considering the name of the ritual, not entirely inappropriate._

Draco wore a smile that Harry hadn't seen since the moment just after Connor's funeral, when he had seemed to share Harry's sense of peace in finally laying his brother to rest. "Ready?" he asked softly, extending the hand without the bracelet. The tame Dark surrounded that, too, in a blaze with silver on the inside and black on the outside, the opposite of Harry's piece.

Harry nodded, and put out his own hand, and as their fingers intertwined, the Dark embraced them and took them—elsewhere.

* * *

Harry lifted his head and stared, then shivered. In spite of what Draco had told him, and what he'd read to prepare, he still found himself overcome by the sheer power of the room in which they stood. A black, cavernous hall, with a ceiling so lost in shadow that stars dangled from it and didn't seem out of place, and walls of gleaming black stone, veined here and there with silver. Gleams of light near at hand revealed the black was either sleek dark green or at least had some shades of that color in it.

Light…

Harry turned and looked over his shoulder. A silver flame burned in the center of the hall, of course, in mimicry of the silver fire that would burn elsewhere that night as the Walpurgis celebrants danced, and to give the ritual its name. Harry cocked his head. The fires of Walpurgis often felt frosty. He expected to feel that sensation from this flickering, single tongue of flame, which wept sparks like tears to either side.

He didn't. A soft warmth engulfed his body instead, and he closed his eyes against that, and against the silver light that had begun to shine from his skin.

"The Dark encloses us," Draco whispered, the first of his ritual words. "The tame Dark we summoned has created this for us, and will hold us close this night and all the nights to come. My beloved, will you come with me and see the gentleness in the heart of the Dark? For even that which is pitiless may know joy."

Harry nodded, and opened his eyes. Draco shone with glory like lighted obsidian, beaming out of him and making his hair hold soft glints of red, his eyes of green, his robes of black. _He ought to be pleased, _Harry thought inanely. _He gets to look like a proper Dark wizard after all._

"I will be pleased," he whispered, when he realized he hadn't yet said the words he needed to.

Draco leaned forward and kissed him, then took his hand and drew him towards the fire. It grew warmer as they approached, and Harry found that he couldn't take his eyes from it. He knew the flame would seek out his mind and offer him whatever glimpse of the paths, or the past, or the wild Dark, was most appropriate to his state of mind. Draco had called this the perfect ritual to undergo after a crippling loss, because it complemented the last Walpurgis in which Harry had taken the lead and cared for him, and this time it would focus on unlocking parts of Harry that had lain buried and diminishing those griefs that might keep him from happiness.

And Draco would take the lead. Harry suspected the ritual's magic, as well as Connor's loss, might lie behind his hovering overprotectiveness for the last month.

The flame grew larger and larger, until it consumed the whole of the world. And then it vanished, so suddenly that Harry wondered if it had managed to burn his eyes and lose him his sight. Or perhaps this was one enormous afterimage? Gaps and holes did begin to open in the darkness after a moment, like a spot from the sun slowly and gradually tattering.

And then he saw what lay before him, and lost his breath.

A group of women in dark robes surrounded a low altar of black stone, and on the altar lay flowers, locks of hair, goblets of wine, peaches, the carcass of a goat—

And a young woman with her throat bared.

Harry knew he'd made some noise, but he couldn't tell what it was, whether a word, perhaps his brother's name, or just a sound of distress. He stared in silence as the priestesses chanted, their voice soaring in joy. They didn't speak a language he knew—or even words at all; their voices slid by like water or birdsong—and he did not know which god they praised. He only heard the happiness, and saw the corresponding ecstasy in the young woman's eyes as she tilted back her head.

There could be no doubt that she was offering her life freely. Willingly. She would let her blood be spilled and go to whatever god or power they served because she _wanted_ to.

Harry closed his eyes. Why had the ritual believed he needed to see a vision of willing sacrifice? He knew what it meant. He'd lived with it for months now. He'd been willing to _perform_ it when he went into Voldemort's lair. And he knew Connor had died of it, had done it because he wanted to.

And when that thought brought black resentment welling to the front of his mind, he knew why the Dark had chosen this sight.

He gave a shudder, and made a low, ugly sound that held fury in it. He hadn't known he felt the fury. Along with all the tears he'd shed, the sad pride that Connor had died that way, the irritation that everyone who hadn't been there seemed to think _Harry_ had been the one to defeat Voldemort and not Connor—

There was anger, as pitiless as the voice of a crow, as pitiless as the wild Dark. In part, he _hated_ his brother for having done this to him, committed suicide and left him here to mourn.

The silver light gushed from his skin, bending around in front of him, forming two distinct and parallel lines that touched each other like hands clasping, and became the silver flame again. Harry stood in the black room with Draco's arms around him, and his own muscles fighting mindlessly to get free.

Draco hissed into his ear, "He did it because he wanted to, Harry, and while you have every right to be angry, that's the true, the deep reason. Not to make you furious. He didn't steal a death from you that you had the right to die. He died to spare you." He hesitated for a moment, then said, "And all the people who love you."

"How can _you_ be sure what went through his head?" Harry ripped free and turned to face Draco, his eyes bright and furious. He saw two of Draco's head, and knew he wept again. He didn't care. These were tears of fury and frustration, not sadness. "You weren't there."

"No," Draco said. His face looked half in shadow, half in dancing firelight, from the odd radiance that bled through his skin. "But we have something in common that you don't—or, at least, that you didn't have in common with us until very recently."

"What's that?" Harry snarled.

"Love for you."

And then Draco kissed him, as intent as Harry had been the night he'd fallen off the mountain, pressing Harry back, to the side of the single flame, and towards a bed that the tame Dark raised from the floor for them. It was a replica of their old bed that had stood in the Slytherin seventh-year boys' room at Hogwarts, Harry saw, dark green curtains and sheets and all.

He fought, at first. He wanted to fight. But the person he wanted most to scream at was gone from the world, and his rage dashed itself to pieces against the walls of both Draco's understanding and his firm non-regret. He was sorry that Connor had died. He wasn't sorry about it in the same way Harry was, and he wouldn't be. He didn't wish that Connor were still alive if it meant that he would have traded Harry for him.

Harry clenched his hands, and found himself lying on the sheets. Draco hovered just above him, breath coming short and fast, eyes piercing him.

"Will you let me do this for you?" Draco asked. "You've shown me openness. Will you let me show it to you?"

Those questions were part of the ritual. Harry knew it, though he had not known why until now. He shut his eyes and tilted his head back. Sweat slicked his forehead like tears, and he had to clench his teeth to keep screams behind them.

"Yes," he said, aware that he sounded angry.

It was the permission Draco needed, evidently, not a particular tone. The sheets rose and wrapped themselves around Harry, turning him over twice, and when they let him free again, he was also free of clothes. He huffed out a breath and locked eyes with Draco, making their gaze a challenge. His power still streamed around him, his anger still rose in him, and the silver light made his limbs into swords. He stood a good chance of cutting Draco if they had sex now.

Draco, already naked himself, eyes dark with passion and limbs dark with the obsidian flare, didn't look as if he cared about that.

He climbed onto Harry and urged him onto his stomach. Harry lifted his head with a gasp of surprise when he realized Draco's fingers were heavy with more of the frankincense-smelling oil. Had the room given it to him, or the Dark, or had he conjured it himself? Harry didn't know, and then had no more time to think about it, as Draco carefully smeared the oil over the one patch in the middle of his back that he hadn't been able to reach.

And Harry found out why they needed the oil, and why the ritual had Flame in its name as well as Silver Splendor.

He shuddered, drowsy heat and gentleness flooding him. The oil had turned to liquid again, and was sliding everywhere on his body, bringing pleasure wherever it went. It didn't smother his emotions, though, as he had half-feared it would, but only softened the anger, bringing it to full bloom and then bearing it away on a tide of other sensations. Harry bowed his head and huffed again. This time, he was trying to catch his breath.

Draco spoke softly to the nape of his neck, ritual phrase after ritual phrase that Harry didn't bother paying attention to. He tilted his head back and sighed with relief as tight knots in his muscles that seemed to have been cramped for the last month unwound. Boneless, he dropped to the middle of the bed.

Draco came down with him, and turned his face for a kiss. Harry had to close his eyes, briefly, before the sight of the emotion in his face. Then he opened his eyes and returned the kiss, with interest.

And after that, he lay there while Draco prepared him with the oil, and the silver light swayed back and forth inside him like seaweed moving in a current, or leaves moving in the wind. He had never felt so relaxed, so comfortable, so open and flowing to the emotions within him. When Draco entered him, Harry arched his back and only wished he could prolong the moment.

Harry didn't know how to describe the motion they shared then, other than _motion_. It wasn't fucking, and it wasn't making love, because emotions other than love sped his heartbeat and made his muscles languid and hazed his mind as he lay there. Best to call it motion, and to revel lazily in everything he was feeling.

One feeling never changed, of course: utter and complete trust in Draco. If he'd been hiding any of that, the ritual had successfully dredged it up and used it as a bedrock for the rest of his emotions.

He barely experienced his own orgasm, just a bright, sharp pinprick of pleasure in the middle of the rest, a star falling into the sea. He felt more keenly the moment when Draco gasped, stiffened, and lost himself, because in the next moment he collapsed onto Harry's back and smeared the oil all over himself.

Harry's eyelids fluttered. He should rouse himself. He should ask Draco about the end of the ritual, which he knew involved the tame Dark returning them to the world, but which he wouldn't be awake to see if he kept lying here. He should explain to Draco what this ritual had made him feel, and how the anger had joined the rest of the emotions dancing through him—not something he'd suppressed, but something he wouldn't admit to himself, and which, now, he could admit.

But all that came out of the mixture of embers and ashes filling him now was a dazed mumble of, "I love you."

"The splendor has shone, and the flame has burned," Draco said, the words to end the ritual. Harry felt the room dissolving around them, but he felt, more clearly, Draco lean forward and say into his shoulder, "I love you, too."

Harry flopped, boneless. It was an utter luxury, utterly decadent, and probably encouraged more by the ritual than what he would naturally and normally feel, but, for once, he didn't care:

He would relax and let Draco take care of everything.


	103. Gloryflower Owls

**Chapter Eighty-Three: Gloryflower Owls**

Hawthorn sniffed deeply, and then shook her head. It was still hard, sometimes, remembering that she'd left her lycanthropy behind. If nothing else, the sense of smell that it had provided her would be quite useful now, as they walked into the Disillusioned tower that contained the Gloryflower owls. She had to place her feet carefully on invisible walkways and clutch at invisible walls and make educated guesses about how low the arches on the doors were, without a sense of smell.

And the softer air of May would even have been kind to her nostrils. One of the very few moments of joy her condition had ever afforded her was sniffing at the air when the seasons were firmly established. Hawthorn had never known _spring_ had a scent all its own, or _summer_, but they did, and she missed them.

_Then brew a potion that will give you just the keenness of scent back, _she sniped at herself, and ducked under the final arch. She heard Lucius, following her, curse softly as his forehead apparently met the stone. She smirked, and then lost the smirk as she straightened and looked around her.

Magic washed around them in soft, cooling waves, but still powerfully enough to make the hair on the back of Hawthorn's neck rise. The owls were compact birds made of gold, with emerald eyes. Hawthorn had seen them before, of course, since she'd voted in several Ministerial elections. Still, she had never seen this many, all crowded close together on small perches, all sleeping and motionless. It would take the touch of the candidates to bring them to life.

She stepped aside so Lucius could make his way into the room. Elizabeth was behind him, and then Laura Gloryflower, and then Cupressus. Hawthorn watched him as he gazed at the sleeping birds in silence. She wondered if he had ever thought he would stand here. It was impossible, most of the time, to tell anything from his face. The first time she had met him after the defeat of Voldemort, he had only nodded to her and remarked how wonderful it was that the battle against the Dark Lord had claimed so few lives.

_The death of Voldemort._

Hawthorn stroked her left arm with her right hand. The hair had grown back into the burned place, and most people, even when they demanded a glimpse, couldn't tell where the Dark Mark had once been. When she first stared down through the light, saw the snake and skull had gone, and realized what it meant for her, Hawthorn had locked herself in her office at the Ministry and cried tears that burned her eyes. A chapter of her life she had sought so hard to unwrite was finally gone.

And now she stood here, with the four other candidates for Minister, about to send a flood of owls into the air and ask people to vote for her, or for one of the others standing beside her.

She even thought she had a reasonably good chance of winning.

_My loves, _her thoughts said, on Pansy and Dragonsbane. _What would you say if you could see me now? Would you be proud? Or would the concerns of the dead occupy you so much that you would only smile at me from behind a veil of mist?_

Elizabeth Nonpareil's nasal voice interrupted her reflections. "Is it right for her to be here?" she complained. Hawthorn turned, sure the insufferable woman would be complaining about her presence, only to see her glaring at Laura. "Her family made these owls, after all. Are we quite sure she won't tamper with them?"

Laura gave Elizabeth a smile that had a hint of the lioness behind it. "The owls themselves will protect the honesty of the candidates," she said. "That is part of the magic on the Tower. You may believe me willing to undercut the election, Mrs. Nonpareil, but I assure you I could not even if I wished to."

Elizabeth's nose stuck a little higher in the air.

Hawthorn shook her head. She was aware of the effort some of Elizabeth's own family had gone to to rescue her image and promote her as a viable candidate in the election, but there were some things money couldn't do.

"We all need to touch an owl," she said, and nodded to the others. Lucius had already arranged himself a bit further down the line of golden birds, a hand extended to the nearest one's breast. Elizabeth and Laura fanned out beyond him, still trading hostile looks. Cupressus strode to an owl almost the opposite of Hawthorn's and stood waiting, blinking occasionally.

Hawthorn returned the glance. Of all the candidates, she was the most comfortable with him. They didn't share an allegiance, nor even a generation, but they had the same attitude towards life. They cared most about Britain having a Minister, for example, rather than their own triumphs.

Cupressus gave her a little nod, but that might have been her imagination. At any rate, Hawthorn was not surprised when his hand struck his owl and began the circle of power that woke the birds up.

It was truly astounding to watch life flare in jeweled eyes, feathers shift, heads turn and orient on the candidates. Hawthorn shivered. She had cured lycanthropy, at least in potential, and she had used blood curses to kill and wound, and she had bred plants, but all those worked with materials originally alive in the first place. To call motion out of nothing but metal and magic—

That made her want to learn another art.

Hawthorn tamed her ambition as well as she could. For now, she would content herself with watching the birds, satisfied that the people come before them had the right to stir them, turn and leap out the windows. The air filled with a storm of golden wings that the Muggles below would see as nothing more than a gleam of sunlight, and the flock broke over London, clumps of them shredding as they sped in different directions, going to every wizard seventeen and older.

Hawthorn became aware that Lucius was beside her, staring after the birds in quiet satisfaction. _Perfect._ She would have made some excuse to draw him to the window if he had hung back, but now she didn't need to. He was in the perfect position to see what happened next, and she was in the perfect position to watch his face.

Another storm of owls unfolded into the air from the middle of London—from Gringotts. They appeared identical in every way to the old birds, and where the streams crossed, it became impossible to tell them apart.

Lucius's jaw fell gently open. He shut it almost at once, but Hawthorn could not have asked for a more satisfying reaction.

"Where did those owls come from?" he asked through gritted teeth, too stunned to be polite.

"Those are the owls that will allow the magical creatures to vote," Hawthorn said innocently. "Forged by Gloryflower artisans, with goblin help, and given all the necessary enchantments that the old ones have—to only produce one ballot per bird, for example."

Lucius looked half-ill now.

"Oh, dear," Hawthorn said, as if this had only just occurred to her. "No one told you the goblins and the others were voting, did they?" She paused. "And you said many things in your speeches alienating them. How sad."

She moved away from him, and leaned against the far wall to wait. The owls were all to return by the evening, and they would produce five piles of ballots when they did, one for each candidate. Those piles would then need to be counted by _everyone_, and their numbers compared and tallied.

She sat in a place where she could watch Lucius's expression.

Killing him for the revenge she was still owed was no fun, she had decided, and in any case, it was quite impossible to arrange for the death of Lucius Malfoy in such a way that his son and Harry wouldn't find out. Much better to cut him to pieces with the tools of politics, and in ways that he never saw coming.

* * *

Owen sighed as the owl landed on the table in front of him, and then glanced at Faustine Nonpareil, who sat in a chair across from him. She looked up and raised her eyebrows.

"Do you think I should vote for Elizabeth?" Owen asked, well-aware of how hopeless he sounded. "We did our best to make her a candidate _someone_ would approve of. I almost feel I owe her this vote, in the name of solidarity."

"I think you should do whatever you desire," said Faustine calmly, taking her own ballot from the open beak of the owl that had landed next to her. "I will certainly not tell you how _I_ vote." She scribbled down the name with a flourish, shoulder ostentatiously hunched so he couldn't look over her arm.

Owen looked down at his own piece of parchment, and then at the owl, who shifted from one clawed foot to the other and had no advice to offer. He bit his lip several times, and, in the end, followed the desire of his heart, the way Faustine had said he should. _Merlin knows I have had enough of duty for a lifetime. _

Michael's face flashed before his eyes.

Owen put it gently aside. He had accepted that he would often be thinking of his brother, but he would not let the grief that image and name invoked control his actions. He wrote _Hawthorn Parkinson_ down and handed the ballot back to the owl. It clapped its wings with a small _clang_, as though thanking him for the vote, and swallowed the parchment, which would come to rest in its belly. Then it turned and climbed out of the room in a dizzying sweep.

Faustine's owl was right behind it. Owen wondered for a moment if that meant the name she'd written was longer than his, and tried to compare the length of the names in his mind, and then shook his head. It could just mean that she was a slower writer, or that she'd taken a bit longer to remember how to spell a certain name.

He didn't intend to dwell on it. He turned back to the parchment in front of him, which contained suggestions to forge the Dark families into more of a united front for political action. "And you think we can persuade the Black Heron to our side with monetary assistance alone?"

* * *

Harry raised an eyebrow at Draco as he tucked the list of locations back into his robe pocket. "You're sure that you want to come with me? It's going to be a nasty, bumpy ride, with constant Side-Along Apparitions, and we'll barely stay in one place long enough to have tea, except the Forest."

"You wouldn't do that on your own." Draco folded his arms. "With me along, you'll be forced to take care of my comfort, and that means that you'll be forced to take care of your own."

Harry frowned at him. "I'm eating and sleeping regularly, Draco. For those first three days—back—I did nothing _but_ eat and sleep."

"And talk to me," said Draco, his face and voice growing perceptibly more smug. "I know which one _I_ credit your recovery to."

Harry bit off an impatient groan, and ended up shaking his head. "You haven't said if you mind the Side-Along Apparitions."

"Of course I mind them. You still can't do it gracefully. And believe me, I do intend to complain about them."

"You can't be _easy_," Harry said darkly, while wings briefly sparked above his shoulders before falling into oblivion. He was reasonably sure he should not be grinning like an idiot at the same time.

"If I was easy, then you'd know I was Polyjuiced." Draco stepped forward and leaned his face against Harry's, not kissing him. "Come on, hero. Let's do your Side-Along Apparitions. I've already voted, so I'm not worried about my owl having to chase me all over Britain."

Harry nodded, and slung an arm around Draco's shoulder. He carried a precise list of Apparition coordinates for every place in the British Isles where intelligent magical serpents lived. He would have to go to them and translate their votes from Parseltongue for the owls. The magical birds had provisions to record voice votes for those who couldn't write, but they didn't understand the snake language, and Lucius, the only other one who could have helped, was a candidate and had to remain in the Tower the owls came from while the election continued.

Harry had voted already himself, for Hawthorn. He hadn't asked whom Draco had voted for. It would be a hard enough choice between the Dark candidates he thought might do a good job, a Light candidate he might favor for sheer sense but feel constrained from voting for because of his allegiance, and his father.

"_I am here! I have voted!_"

Harry looked down in surprise. The arrangement had been that he would return to Silver-Mirror this evening and collect Argutus's vote, because the Omen snake had been unable to decide whom he wanted for Minister. But here came Argutus with a piece of parchment held firmly in his mouth and an owl fluttering after him, clacking its beak and trying to take the parchment away.

"How in the world did you manage to write this?" Harry asked, taking the parchment from Argutus's snout. The owl came and sat firmly on his shoulder, staring fixedly at the ballot. Harry shifted so that his hair stroked it, and unfolded the parchment. The writing was shaky, but clear. _Laura Gloryflower._

"_I have learned to write now!_" Argutus swayed his head proudly from side to side. "_Letters are not as complicated as runes, and I have learned to mimic them with a quill held in my tail! And soon I will understand English!_"

Harry couldn't help but smile, at least in the moment before the owl leaped, snapped the ballot from his hand, swallowed it, and coasted out the window. Argutus hissed in disappointment. "_I wanted Draco to see my writing,_" he said.

"Write it again today," Harry assured him, slipping his arm through Draco's. "You can show it to him when we come back."

"_And you'll make him look at it?_" Argutus tapped his tail in a meaningful pattern on the floor. So far as he was concerned, there had been many important things to show Draco in the three days immediately after Connor's death when he was cooped up with Harry, but Draco had turned him away each time, unable to understand the Parseltongue and worried that the Omen snake would disturb Harry.

"I promise."

Argutus bobbed his head, his approximation of a human nod, and slithered away. Harry looked around to see a slightly stunned expression in Draco's eyes.

"Harry," Draco begged quietly, "please tell me that your snake didn't just vote."

"Of course he did," said Harry, a bit surprised. Draco had been in on the secret of the new Gloryflower voting owls; Harry would never shut him out from anything that important. "You knew he was going to."

"I was picturing a vote translated from Parseltongue. Not—writing." Draco gave a slight shudder. "He will read my letters and probably write one himself, if he takes the fancy. Merlin, Harry, sometimes your snakes are more than a bit frightening."

"Says the one who got me this one," Harry retorted, clasped his hand around Draco's arm, and Apparated to the Forbidden Forest.

* * *

Syrinx gazed thoughtfully at the parchment in front of her. Had this been two months ago, she would have put down her cousin's name. She had owed her everything, from the shared Gloryflower name to the fact that Laura had agreed to put her with Harry as a sworn companion.

But her mind had changed since then, quite literally. She was in the next-to-last phase of war witch training now, reintegrating herself with the world, learning to think things she had never thought. She was no longer tempted to vote for Laura simply because she was family. Syrinx had listened to her, and while Laura was a brave warrior, politics was not war. It had different rules and different requirements, and sometimes Syrinx thought Laura hadn't realized there was no longer a Voldemort to be fought. There were people as bad, perhaps, but without that magical power to make themselves known, there was no Voldemort on the horizon.

So she thought about what she believed, sitting by the upper window of Silver-Mirror's library in a flood of sunlight, and what Laura believed, and what the other candidates believed. The owl sat beside her, wanting the ballot but content to wait for however long it took her to decide. There were rumors of an election in the last century where the owl had waited two weeks for an old, deaf witch to have the positions of the candidates explained to her in detail several dozen times.

In the end, Syrinx wrote down _Cupressus Apollonis_, and the owl beside her began to hop from foot to foot like a small child who had to use the loo. Syrinx smiled and held out the parchment. With a little hoot of comfort, the bird snatched it from her fingers and sped out the window. Syrinx sat back to watch it go with a smile that would have been impossible for her before Harry became her anchor.

* * *

Harry knelt down next to the Many hive and hissed at the entwined ball of snakes. Draco raised his eyebrows. He could accept Argutus as a single being, nearly as intelligent as themselves though in a different way, and certainly it was even easier with the magical creatures who had some semblance of human form, like the centaurs, but he would never find the many minds spread among dozens of tiny golden-green cobras anything but alien.

Harry nodded, and then spoke softly to one of the owls who hovered overhead. Draco shook his head when he heard the name of Elizabeth Nonpareil. Ah, well, it was to be accepted that magical creatures who had never voted before would make mistakes; they might be impressed with the sound of her name in Parseltongue, or the impression that she had many eggs, or anything else that Harry had neglected to explain to make them understand just how unsuitable a Minister she would make.

When he had first heard that Harry would be translating Parseltongue votes for the magical snakes, Draco had assumed that this was a prime opportunity to throw a few more votes behind Hawthorn. Harry had stared at him for a moment, then told him he was merely _collecting_ the votes, not assuring them. He would make as great an effort as he could to insure that he represented all the candidates fairly and the snakes could choose among them, just as if they were human and could read or enter the human debate about them in English.

On some things, Draco had concluded, he and Harry would never agree. He could understand, in an abstract manner, why Harry wanted to be fair, but politics wasn't fair, and they should use any advantage they could get. It wasn't as though anyone else would be present who could understand the votes and insist that a snake had said Elizabeth when Harry could pretend that it had said Hawthorn. This was the first election with magical creatures voting. Harry should guide them.

Harry had hissed at him when he suggested that, something that Draco was quite sure was an insult in Parseltongue, and stalked away. Draco shrugged. He himself had voted for Hawthorn, and done his part to secure a better future for wizarding Britain. She was the best of them, the most able and the most flexible and the most trusted by the other people in Harry's alliance. It was not his fault if Harry tried to undercut that and ended up cutting Hawthorn out of office.

When the Many hives had finished giving Harry their votes, the Runespoors came forward and did so. That drove Draco quite mad, because the three heads of every snake had to agree, and that often took minutes of debate, or what sounded like debate: sharp hisses and two heads combining to threaten the other. Luckily, the list of locations they had to visit after this was not long. There were other Omen snakes living in Britain as friends of wizards, a few more scattered colonies of Runespoors, and apparently a crossbred snake of some kind in the north of Scotland that was rumored to have hydra blood. They would go to the shores of Loch Ness and call out, but Draco doubted that the kelpie in the lake would come to them wearing the form of a giant snake, or would be interested in voting if it did. It was far more likely to drown them.

A movement on the edge of his peripheral vision caught his attention, and he turned sharply. A small shape slid through the undergrowth, coming closer. Draco warily drew his wand. No matter what Harry thought, not all magical creatures were friendly to wizards, and some mindless magical snakes, incapable of voting, did live in the Forest and might be as happy to bite the _vates_ as anyone.

The leaves at his feet stirred aside, and the golden-and-black shape of a Locusta revealed itself, coiled so that the broken skull-and-crossbones signs on its scales were visible. It hissed something in Parseltongue to Harry, who had just turned away from the last Runespoor.

Harry caught his breath and went very still.

_He still misses Sylarana, _Draco thought, lowering his wand as the snake danced and hissed but made no move to attack. _He savors loss like a fine wine. I don't think he'll get over his brother any time soon._

It wasn't that Draco had _wanted_ Harry to stop thinking about Connor, exactly, so much as that he had not wanted grief to poison him. But if Harry reacted this way to the mere sight of a Locusta snake, who knew how long it would take him to stop freezing when his brother's name came up in conversation?

Harry had a slightly dazed expression on his face as he hissed back. Then he turned to an owl and said, "Laura Gloryflower." The owl flew back towards London at once.

"Laura _Gloryflower?"_ Draco said, as he found his voice. "Why is a Dark snake voting for a Light witch? You did explain to it that she's of a different allegiance than it is, right?"

"He," Harry said absently, still seeming dazed. "And yes, I explained that. He doesn't care. He rather thought the family of the creator of these owls should be his choice." He licked his lips, and seemed to be avoiding Draco's gaze. Draco felt his eyes narrow suspiciously. "And, um, well, his name is Yaraliss."

"Yes?" Draco said, as neutrally as he could.

"Yes." Harry hesitated a moment longer, then extended his arm. The Locusta slithered happily up it, and curled around so that his head rested on Harry's shoulder. Draco found himself confronted with a pair of green eyes, at least as bright as Harry's, or as Sylarana's. "And he's decided that he's coming home with me."

Draco shivered. He didn't fancy sharing the house with an extremely venomous snake who would demand as much of Harry's attention and time as Sylarana had. "And you think that's a good idea?"

Harry avoided his gaze even as he stroked the golden-black scales. Yaraliss wriggled in pleasure. "He absolutely promises to get along with Argutus, and not to bite anyone unless they try to attack me. Really," he added, when Draco opened his mouth. "That's what he said, and we even defined 'attack' so he won't bite someone who, well, tries to hug me exuberantly."

"Harry—" Draco began.

Harry looked up at him through his fringe. "I really want him to come with me," he said in a tiny voice.

_Oh, for Merlin's sake. _Draco sighed. "Just remember what happened last time, and don't let him intertwine that deeply into your mind," he said.

"Oh, Yaraliss is more interested in the outer world than—she was," Harry said softly, and touched the Locusta behind his head. He wriggled again, but Draco thought there was a smug spitefulness in the green eyes that Harry's other snakes _definitely_ did not have. "He won't blackmail me the way she did."

Seeing the helpless adoration in Harry's eyes, Draco decided that he was doomed and might as well give in now. He shook his head as the Locusta said something imperious-sounding to Harry and slithered into a pocket, then stepped forward and leaned on Harry's shoulder. "Where are we going next?"

* * *

Lucius lifted his head. The last of the owls had flown into the room, and the Tower was filled with softly stirring bodies and cooing voices. At least they did not have the shed feathers and dust of real birds, he thought.

The owls cocked their heads forward and spat out ballots. They flew into five neat piles—one for each candidate, Lucius knew. He had heard the stories of this, and even known that he might stand here someday, though he had certainly never believed it would be at the end of the first election in which magical creatures could vote—

He cut the thought off sharply.

A number of owls hovered above the ballots for a moment, then separated and flew to certain piles. Those would be the owls with the voice votes translated from Parseltongue, Lucius knew, and sometimes owls who contained votes by wizards and witches who couldn't write.

"Well," said Hawthorn in a falsely bright voice, when they had sat there for some minutes contemplating the folded parchments. "Shall we?" She stepped forward to one of the larger piles, which was surely hers. The others moved as confidently towards the piles that would have their names on them. They would count the parchments for their names, then move and count those for the other names. Magic in the Gloryflower owls themselves would insure their counts were as honest as could be—prevent them from lying about the numbers, at least, though not from miscounting.

It did not escape Lucius's notice that his pile was smaller than anyone else's, save Elizabeth Nonpareil's.

He told himself that was because the wizarding population of Britain was reduced right now, with many people fled and others dead.

He did not believe it himself.

Bending over his own pile and beginning the count, he coldly acknowledged to himself that he had made mistakes, and those would have to change. No, he had truly not expected to win the election, but he had expected to do better than this—better than Laura Gloryflower, for instance, who had depended on her name to carry her through too much of her campaign. He intended to use this as a rung up the political ladder, and if he could not do that, he had failed in far more than simply losing the election.

In silence, they counted, and switched piles, and counted again. Lucius could feel his cheeks burn when he saw how much larger Hawthorn's pile was than his own—by more than a thousand ballots. He did not look up, and he hoped that none of the others saw his flush.

In the end, there could be no doubt. Elizabeth Nonpareil still looked stunned that she had lost, and Laura Gloryflower thoughtful over the fact that more people had voted for a Dark witch and former Death Eater than had voted for her. Therefore, it was Hawthorn's task to incline her head and say, "Congratulations, Minister," to Cupressus Apollonis.

Apollonis accepted the declaration with no more than a nod, which was like him. Lucius turned away before they could lock eyes. He despised the new Minister not because he was weak, but because he was the very epitome of Light, the opposite of everything that Lucius stood for.

"Shall we go down and announce this to them?" Apollonis asked, and the other candidates nodded. Reporters would be waiting at the foot of the Tower—they probably had been as soon as they saw the owls fly back, Lucius knew. The others turned and left the room.

Lucius lingered where he was for a moment, looking out over Muggle London. One by one, lights came to life, shining, and Lucius curled his lip. _Not torches, not _Lumos _charms. Our worlds are separate, and better by far that they stay that way._

Currently, he was thinking less of the lost election than the fact that he had recognized his son's handwriting on a vote for Hawthorn.

There was still work to be done to restore his reputation and name, that was clear.

But there was no one better to do it.

With silent dignity, resolved to do even better than he had in the past, Lucius turned and made his way down, composing answers in his mind all the while for such critical questions as, "What do you feel about magical creatures voting for the Minister, Mr. Malfoy?" He would answer that of course they had a place in magical Britain, and he had accepted that things must take their course. It balanced between his old position, which no one believed he would so easily abandon, and the future that was coming now.

It was time for a change.


	104. Intermission: Snapshots

The format of this Intermission is somewhat unusual, but without it, I don't think there's a way to even _hint_ at most of the characters' fates. This isn't meant to close all possibilities off completely and end the stories, of course, since so many people are still alive, but give a series of small glimpses.

**Intermission: Snapshots**

_If there were a camera that could take pictures evocative of life amid the ruins and the flowers of Voldemort's defeat, these are the kinds of pictures it might produce._

* * *

A photograph of a young woman, showing her pregnancy, entering a vault where two stone statues stand: a woman, and a child in her arms. When she speaks the proper words, golden and silver light races around the statue, and tears open stone to reveal the flesh beneath. The woman shakes her head, and shivers, and blonde hair spills free of its confinement. The girl in her arms clears her throat and says, "Millicent?" in blurred but understandable tones.

Millicent Bulstrode hugs her mother and her sister, and in silence and gladness welcomes them back into the world.

* * *

A series of photographs, showing Floo connections and stubborn faces, both of them framed by bright her. Sometimes a third face comes and goes from the pictures—the face of a patient, long-suffering woman. Honoria Pemberley keeps her promise of trying to reconcile Cupressus Apollonis and his daughter.

It will take years, it will take many more photographs, to show the whole process. But if they did not want this to happen, Ignifer and Cupressus should never have allowed Honoria to pick up the camera.

* * *

An American wizard is visible in this picture, come to Britain to speak to the _vates_ about the magical sea serpents that the Americans have kept fenced in several deep lakes, and what should be done about them. Yet he does not dominate the picture, nor does Harry Black, who has come ceremoniously out of Silver-Mirror to greet him. The ones who do are a tall blond wizard with eyes more gray than blue, and a younger wizard with eyes more blue than gray. They stand in the corner of the picture, and stare at each other as if locked in a duel of stares alone.

The photograph after that one would show the younger wizard moving to greet the ambassador from America before his father could. It would not be entirely clear whether Lucius Malfoy stepped aside of his own free will or was "convinced" to do so, but those who cared to could read their own answers in the slight bow of his head, and the fact that it would be directed at his son.

* * *

A photograph of two documents, made before they are sent to the Ministry. One is on thick, heavy parchment, burnished to a golden-cream color, and contains carefully penned phrase after carefully penned phrase. It is full of solemn promises from Harry Black to guard the Potter estates and vaults as if they were his own, to search for and train a suitable heir to them, and only to use the money from the vaults in pursuit of a comfortable life for the heir once he finds him or her.

The second document is much simpler: the form to tell the Ministry of a change of name. It simply says that, from now on, Harry James Black wishes to be known as Harry Polaris Black.

The line requesting a reason for the change says, in writing that looks as if it were done in haste, or by a hand trembling with embarrassment: _Polaris is the guide star, the north star. I would be that for people if I can—a sign to lead them home, one they can follow if they wish to._

* * *

An oddly-shaped coffin dominates this picture, which shines in hues so rich it could be a painting. And why should it not be? The scene is a hillside vivid with flowers and with trees in blossom, a sheltered magical sanctuary where harsh winds never come and only time will take the flowers from the branches. The trees will bear apples. They curve in around the coffin as if sheltering it from the harsh gaze of the world, which will not understand.

The coffin is made of dark wood, as is traditional when burying one of the Bulstrode line, but very much larger than it needs to be to hold one body. It might, possibly, hold two bodies lying across each other—a man and a woman, say. As if a couple had gone down entwined in madness and bloody death, and it did not seem right to separate them in burial.

* * *

This comes from the _Daily Prophet_, and shows an old woman calm and gratified by her reception at the Ministry; readers will know that is so, because the article accompanying the picture proclaims it. She is, visibly, not human. Faint spots cover her body. She sports a tail. Green eyes stare back at the camera as Augusta Longbottom shows off her nonhuman heritage, as well as the fact that the Ministry is fully committed to protecting the rights of half-human wizards.

By her side, beaming, stands her grandson Neville, who seems considerably more excited than she does.

* * *

Brightness emanates from this picture. Its source might as easily be the young woman's smile as the sheen of her long red hair. She stands with her older brother's hand on his shoulder, and there is an expression of sturdy pride on his face. Ginny Weasley waves a document above her head, fast enough that it's hard to see what the writing on it is.

In the second picture, she stands still and looks a bit sheepish, document unfolded before her so that others can read it. It states that the Ministry, based on a series of preliminary exams, intends to accept her into their new Auror program once she finishes a term at the rebuilt Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Ron Weasley, behind her, looks as proud of her as ever, but also rather worn. That might be attributed to the long series of arguments with their family that undoubtedly preceded this picture.

* * *

This picture is dark, blurry, and difficult to see. Oddly enough, one must hold it up to moonlight to glimpse everything in it, and no one is likely to do that. Luckily, it rests in the possession of one who knows what to do with it, because he took it.

Properly illuminated, it shows the sliver of a moon just come in from the new, and dark, winged shapes in flight. The remnants of blue chains, perhaps, newly shattered, trail from their hooves. One does not need to have seen someone die, because the cutting of their chains and their web changed that about them. Free thestrals, the last remnants of the herd in the Forbidden Forest, they arch over the black landscape below and heard towards some destination unknown and unimaginable to humans. On the far side of the photograph, one can just make out the hindquarters of the flight's leader passing through what looks like an open door.

* * *

How one views this picture would depend on how one feels about the headline that accompanies it. Cupressus Apollonis stands calmly on the steps of the Ministry, holding up what appears to be an ordinary Pensieve. That is all. That the image could be the subject of so much controversy seems astounding.

The headline, of course, explains matters. Rather than construct a prison of torment in the manner of Azkaban, or one of boredom and slow, creeping madness such as Tullianum was, the new Minister has chosen a different approach. Through the modification of a spell first invented by Draco Malfoy, criminals will share their victim's pain at the crime—living through the horror of a rape, for example, or the pitiless fear of confronting a thief who threatens their children to make them hand over money. If the victim is dead, the spell will capture family members' and friends' emotions, and make the criminal understand exactly what he has taken from the world.

This punishment of empathy is to be repeated until the criminal fully comprehends what he has done, or repents—or, sometimes, both of those things. Prison awaits only those who will not repent, who are in danger of doing it again.

* * *

It might be best to show four of these photographs, though three would be sufficient to tell the story.

The first shows a pair of snakes nose-to-nose. One is much larger than the other, but the smaller one does not look intimidated. Indeed, since the larger one has the gently shimmering color of an Omen snake, and the smaller the gold-black scales of a Locusta, it could be said that size does not correspond to deadliness among this pair.

The second shows them curled on a bed together, carefully side-by-side but not far apart. Feeling each other out, as it were. Seeing how much space is necessary between them when they both wish to nap. The careful observer will note that the space is about as much as a human body would take up.

The third photograph is the liveliest. The Locusta lunges at a figure out of sight, beyond the border of the picture. The Omen snake has clamped his mouth down around his tail and holds tight. It is clear that, in a moment, the Locusta will snap taut and fall on the bed—and, probably, turn and strike from embarrassment or spite at the snake who prevented him from biting someone else.

The last in the series shows the snakes calmly tangled together on the bed, a smirking black skull on gold just barely visible over an expanse of scales like milk. Both heads are out of sight, submerged in the tumble of coils. It seems the dispute has resolved with not only no one being poisoned, but a new friendship occurring.

Beneath the photographs, tacked on a wall, someone has written a caption.

_Never let it be said that Argutus can't make friends with anyone he likes. Or that Yaraliss doesn't admire bravery._

* * *

This scene would seem violent to anyone who does not know the story. Thomas Rhangnara brings down a book with careful force and excellent precision on the head of a young girl whom people might guess is his daughter, if they squint.

The next photograph is even more enigmatic. It consists of nothing but a scroll of difficult math problems, all of them with correct answers.

But the third photograph, which shows father and daughter dancing through the Black library and upsetting shelves, must show a wealth of happiness, even if the means by which they reached it is not quite visible.

* * *

It takes an inquiring mind to suspect _much_ from this photograph, truly. And the kind of mind one has will determine what inference one makes beyond the mere inquiry.

Owen Rosier-Henlin has his mouth open, obviously giving an important speech; the photograph is from the _Vox Populi_, and probably bears some radical, angry article along with it. Next to him stands Faustine Nonpareil, carefully contriving to look as unimpressed as possible. She has her arms folded, and her gaze divided between the photographer—or audience—and Owen.

One might inquire whether she looks at Owen as if she would like to stab him, or as if she appreciates what he is doing.

* * *

This picture is a blur of movement, and it will take more than one look to sort out the participants. Both have golden hair, both move fast, and both have extended blades in their hands, rather than the more usual wands.

By staring closely, one might decide that both are women, and that one is younger than the other by virtue of her size, and that they are most probably related.

It is, in fact, a picture of Syrinx Gloryflower dueling Laura, and managing to surprise her older cousin more than once. She has begun the penultimate phase of a war witch's training, and Laura admits, in the movement of her body and her blade, that Syrinx will be a formidable one.

* * *

The room is covered in spilled liquid—mostly silver, but with glimpses of purple and red mixed here and there. Crushed swan feathers litter the foreground, since the picture was taken, or might have been taken, by someone stretched full-length on the floor. Two women draw more attention than the swan feathers, however. One, with her head bowed and her long hair falling over her face, is anonymous. The other, kneeling in front of her with her hands on her shoulders, will be familiar to anyone who reads the _Daily Prophet_ as Hawthorn Parkinson.

The next day, this photograph, or one very like it, will run under the byline of Rita Skeeter, and the headline of _Lycanthropy Potion Cures Delilah Gloryflower._

* * *

As if in defiance of the fact that a lycanthropy cure exists in the world, the two werewolves run through the picture, at the head of a large and mingled pack. The full moon is just visible in faint shadows across their fur and a pale light that seems to shine from the ground beneath their paws more than the sky above them. Both move with the easy assurance of those bitten in childhood, those who have been werewolves for years.

One werewolf is large, gray, and male, with amber eyes; he becomes a human named Remus Lupin when the moon is not full, but more and more he accepts _this _form as part of his true self. The second, slightly smaller, is black, female, and has dark eyes; she will be Peregrine when the moon relents, and she is learning the virtues of cooperation between the London packs and with the wizarding world, now that the Ministry is paying attention and acting properly.

For now, though, there is the moon, and the run, and all the smells visible to a werewolf's nose.

* * *

Probably, the subject of this photograph would not have wanted it to be taken. He would prefer to be caught in a happier moment, not now, as he is, crying and turning his face away.

From thinking of oneself as a sacrifice to leaping into power is a long distance. Peter Pettigrew did not know what to do with himself when the Wizengamot told him that, based on consultations with Hogwarts's surviving students and those professors who wish to return to the school, they chose him to be Headmaster.

In time, in a few moments, he will be able to smile. But not now.

* * *

There are few photographs like this one, because word spread among the newspapers quickly: _stay away from Harry Black's foster father. _Only Dionysus Hornblower, who is immune to fear, regularly sends his people to take pictures of Severus Snape now.

Snape strides along a rocky path, which the knowledgeable are aware leads to one of the hidden Black houses—sanctuary for the _vates_ and those close to him when they don't wish to deal with the press. His cloak billows behind him, and his face is set into a scowl. It doesn't appear as though the acclaim lately fallen onto his shoulders, as people praise him for raising the _vates_ and pushing through the trial that led to the ending of his birth parents' influence over him and, ultimately, the revelation of Headmaster Dumbledore's crimes, has changed him.

What changes Severus Snape moves far beneath the surface. Thus Dionysus Hornblower, along with a few select others, believes, and he is determined to capture one of the moments when the miracle happens.

Severus Snape is unchangeable. Thus most of the other reporters, even the daring and truth-committed Rita Skeeter, believe.

* * *

This photograph is not precious for its rarity. While Harry Black is still, often, shy of the camera, Draco Malfoy is quite ready to pose by himself, and answer questions, and—the clever are coming to realize this—mine information from the person talking to him with his own "innocent" assertions.

But this photograph is precious because it shows the Malfoy heir not smiling, or smirking, or wearing one of the serious expressions that come up when he discusses politics. Instead, he stands on a shore and looks at the waves with a solemn, unguarded expression, as if he wanted to know an answer they will never give him.

In his hand he holds a clutch of flowers—narcissus, and snapdragons. There are not many who know that he comes every week, quiet and alone, to place them on his brother-in-law's grave.

* * *

Flames burst skyward, arching as if eager to escape from the darkness at their heart, their edges rippling and shedding shimmers of heat far into the air. Harry Black stands to one side of the pyre and watches it, face stern. When necessary, he adds more magic to the fire so it will burn hotter.

Thus, unmourned, thoroughly burned, the ashes willed to vanish and not to scatter, the last remnant of Voldemort passes out of the world.

* * *

Lazuli Yaxley, intertwined with shadows, kneels beside her daughter. They are digging in a garden, planting a rose together. Jacinth is laughing. Since the establishment of the new Ministry, and the visits she and her mother have made there a few times, without her father, she has known something like happiness.

The second photograph shows a banner draped around the rose, now a flourishing bush, the petals open and aided, probably, by the application of magic. The banner bears the symbol of the House of Yaxley: a thorn tree in front of a rising full moon. The letters beneath the symbol are small, almost unnoticeable against the colors of the banner and the living glory of the bush, but present: _In memory of a sister beloved, and gone too soon._

* * *

Cupressus Apollonis is careful. One can indeed say that for him. He does not simply run tests for those who might become Aurors in the future, he does not simply snatch up talented newcomers who might prove to be what he needs, he seeks out and hires those who, involved in disputes with the Ministry, left in the last year before Minister Scrimgeour fell.

Thus, among the Aurors standing stiffly on the front steps of the Ministry in this official photograph are Nymphadora Tonks, who looks more than a little uncertain—

And Alastor Moody, who never looks uncertain about anything.

* * *

This is quite a large and beautiful room in the Ministry, with space for many wizards to stand. Doors along the walls lead to other rooms, made, from their dark wood and their vaguely furtive air, to hold secrets. A number of men and women stand beside the doors, gray hoods pulled back to reveal their faces.

In the center sits the Stone, currently projecting a dragon's head. The head holds a placard in its mouth, proclaiming exultantly, _I know what right and wrong are now!_

* * *

Harry Black looks more than a little stiff and out of place in this picture. The other personages around him—the Ministers of France, Spain, and Portugal; Cupressus Apollonis; Evamaria Gansweider, the Minister of Austria—are far more used to ceremonies and official occasions and people being interested in what they have to say.

The banner above them proclaims, in five different languages, the creation of a new and smaller union of countries that will stand slightly apart from the International Confederation. In particular, the banner continues, this organization will investigate new models of wizard-Muggle interaction and coexistence, the ethical ramifications of using _Obliviate_ on Muggles, and the creation of Ministries in which being beyond the influence of Lords and Ladies is the first concern.

It is notable as one of the few photographs, official or otherwise, in which Evamaria Gansweider is smiling.

* * *

This is a private photograph, not meant to be widely shared. Tybalt Starrise sits in silence, with a sober face, for once, above a diary. The diary documents the relationship between his mother Alba and her twin brother Augustus. He had not really known, before then, that his mother was his uncle's anchor, and what happened to his sanity when she died.

His partner John stands beside him, gently touching his shoulder. Tybalt's cousin Portia, currently being reared as the heir to the Starrise properties, stands next to him, barely tall enough to put her chin over the table, and pats his hand.

The photograph is put in a private book, and beneath the picture is written, _To be looked at when I think I know everything about a person._

* * *

Calibrid Opalline and her father face each other across an expanse of stone which is the threshold to their home made of a dragon skeleton, Gollrish Y Thie. Calibrid's arm rests across her stomach, and she looks as stubborn as a mule. Paton has one hand over his eyes.

It appears that his daughter is pregnant, and will not tell him who the father of her child is. This is not a great problem, save that Paton wishes to welcome the father into the Opalline clan, and Calibrid is making it impossible.

But then, his daughter has made his life difficult in many ways since her birth more than twenty years ago.

Not far from both of them is a chair, not fully included in the picture, from which a leg projects. The leg might, with a little squinting, be perceived to have the black ridges that are a sign of dragonfire burning. Though it took long recovery in the Sanctuary, Doncan Opalline has returned to his home, and his appointed task of guarding his sister, at last.

* * *

This photograph is the most blurred and uncertain of them all—just a glimpse of turning face, fluttering hair, shut eyes. The _focus_ of the picture is a woman and her child posed proudly in front of Madam Malkin's, where the child has gone to be fitted for her first formal robe, but someone has cut them out and focused on this turning figure instead.

The figure resembles, in certain respects, Fiona Mallory, the former Auror who tortured the Potters, and then was locked into a coma by Lucius Malfoy, released by Unspeakables, and sent Merlin-knows-where.

Despite hunts made by the person who now holds the photograph, Harry Black, no other trace of her has been uncovered.

* * *

Parvati leans against her parents, who both stand with an arm around her shoulders. Beside her is Padma, holding her hand with a grip that says the world can try to tear her twin sister away from her, but this would not be very smart of the world.

There are signs that the drifting shadows across Parvati's eyes, though they will always be present in some capacity, are beginning to melt into peace.

* * *

Hermione Granger and Miriam Smith stand facing each other across a table scattered with parchment. Hermione's face is flushed, but her chin high. She wears the silver knot of the Black jewelry Harry once lent her at her neck. Her expression is stubborn, saying she will not back down.

On the surface, Miriam's face conveys only irritation with how ill-bred the girl in front of her is. But there may be—under the surface—a hint of buried admiration and amused respect.

Possibly. If one searches.

* * *

Harry Black lies on his stomach, eyes closed, head flung to the side so that the picture-taker can see his profile. His hair is still as messy as ever, and not helped by the energetic activities he's just been fallen out of. His skin still holds a slight sheen of sweat. His hand curls around the edge of the pillow. He looks as if he were _engaged_ with sleep, battling or wrestling with it. On the appropriate finger of his right hand, as always, rests the silver ring that Draco gave him as a present for their first joining ritual.

But perhaps, here, the camera should be put aside, and the photograph permitted not to exist. Some moments should be remembered, not recorded.


	105. A Toast to the Swift Years

**Chapter Eighty-Four: A Toast to the Swift Years**

Draco stepped back and eyed the chain on the wall, then nodded. Linked silver rings topped with blue-gray stones, in the colors of the old Malfoy crest, glinted and turned in small half-circles. The edges of their settings sealed together with clever hooks not visible from the ground, and the effect was of a familiar decoration turned strange by the array.

Draco turned, directing his gaze across the room. It was not, of course, the size of the great receiving hall at Malfoy Manor, but Harry had not wanted to hold this celebration in the place where Medusa and Eos Rosier-Henlin died, and Draco had agreed with him. So they had chosen another Malfoy house, one allowed to lapse into disrepair as the family grew smaller or lost money, and then cleaned it themselves with the aid of more household charms than Draco had known existed. This room, with Harry's magic to change the color of the walls and the tiles, had become a dark blue sanctuary with chains of silver rings along the walls, and a small and tasteful banner announcing the celebration of Draco's eighteenth birthday. It wouldn't hold everyone who might expect to be invited—all the newspaper reporters and a good number of Ministry officials, for example—but Draco would say he wanted this to remain a small, semi-private gathering. That would reduce the crowd _and_ increase the smugness of those who managed to secure an invitation.

"Draco."

His father's voice could once have produced a stiffening in his back and a rushing sensation in his mind, as Draco thought of every argument they could have and ways to step around it. Now, he cocked his head and looked over his shoulder. "Father," he said. "Have you come to wish me well?"

Lucius shook his head briskly and extended a box in his hands. "I wished to give you your gift in private," he said.

Draco drew out his wand and cast several spells that would check for hexes, his eyes never leaving his father's. Far from being offended, Lucius looked pleased. He would have been displeased if his son were so stupid as to trust him without thought.

Nothing showed up, and Draco took the box away from his father and hefted it. It was fairly small, whatever it was, and flat. A book? For a moment, Draco's mind returned to Tom Riddle's diary, which his father had ended up giving to Harry in second year, and he caught his breath.

Then he shook his head and slit the dark blue paper with a soft _Diffindo_, opening the box a moment later.

Inside, a flat plaque of pale metal, probably platinum, looked up at him. Seven lines of writing graced it, carved letters filled with silver. Draco reached down and traced the first with a finger, then looked at Lucius for an explanation.

"These are seven things I have thought of you over the years," said Lucius, without preamble, "from the time you were eleven and in your first year at Hogwarts until now. Though you will finish your NEWTS out of school, this is still, technically, the last year you would have been at school, and when you left it, you would have been accounted an adult. This is a toast to the swift years, Draco, a record of things I have thought and no longer think, or may change my mind about in the future." And then he turned and walked out of the room, as if he could not bear to share it with his son a moment longer.

Draco stared after him, then turned and read the seven lines. They went in chronological order, as he had suspected, with the first line of writing depicting his first year and the bottom line of writing his last one. No other interpretation made sense. Each was, at the most, a few sentences long.

_Too bright, too curious, and too obsessed with the Potter boy. I should have released this butterfly from the Manor's cocoon before this. He might at least have tested his wings against the wind, and if they tattered, I should have been there to rescue him from such mistakes as he will now make._

_Even butterflies can dance._

_Narcissa has told me about the unconscious effects of the Potter boy's magic and how they might have compelled Draco to act unlike himself. I wish I could believe her, but I cannot. If Draco allows his mind to be bent that much, then the weakness is in himself._

_The butterfly sheds his wings, and I see the beginnings of a falcon. I wish I could know when that egg might hatch and the whole bird come forth, so that I can see his shape. At the least he will have a powerful protector in the Potter boy, whom he has convinced to value him above all people in the world._

_The falcon emerges, and is a stronger flyer than I thought him._

_I tried to tame Draco on account of his weakness, only to have him strike back and expos the weaknesses in myself. That is unforgivable—on both of our parts. _

_My son has power, and strength, and might, and this falcon is more of Narcissa's training than mine. She had the sense to set him free while I was still struggling with the jesses._

Draco closed his eyes and stood still for a moment. He wished he could go after his father and confront him about the lines, but he knew what would happen if he did. Lucius would stare at him coldly and deny that anything important had passed between them, and that might be the route to shut down the further intercourse with his father that was opening, slowly and cautiously, back up. Draco would have to live with the knowledge that his father had thought these things, and the reactions of anyone he wanted to show them to. But he could not discuss them with Lucius.

If Lucius Malfoy confessed his mistakes, he must do it in such a manner that it was impossible to hold the confessions over his head.

Abruptly, Draco strode out of the hall, and kept walking until he reached the front steps of the house. It was not far off sunrise, and the air had softened and warmed considerably from May. Early June, without a trace of snow. Draco sat down, put his arms on his knees, and buried his head in them.

_My father sees me as all three. _

It was the distinction he had once mentioned to Harry, the rarest distinction in Lucius Malfoy's lexicon. Draco had never dreamed that his father would apply it to him.

_And then there are people who are powerful, and strong, and mighty. That means they have this kind of wild beauty that unites the other qualities and sends them flowing above their heads, flapping like a banner, calling other people to notice them. My father didn't think might was something you could be born with, or even decide to develop. You had to climb to meet it, and it's so tiring to live life at that level that most people never make it._

He wondered for a moment where Lucius thought he had forged the ability to keep living life at that level, and then shook his head, his hair brushing against his arms. That was another thing he would never know the answer to. Lucius would consider it a weakness to acknowledge that he'd written that last line, let alone acknowledge what it meant. Draco was sure he must have done the carving himself; he would have had to kill any craftsman who did it, not trusting to an _Obliviate._

Draco knew he bore Harry's regard, which was a struggle enough to live up to. He had reckoned he'd long ago forfeited his father's, and now here it was, back again, tugging Narcissa's legacy in its train like a reminder.

He was—

He was more than he had thought, than many people thought him.

Draco knew he wasn't what many people would think of as moral. He didn't see why he should demonstrate loyalty, or consideration, or love, to most of the world. They had to prove that they were worthy of it, by intimidating him or demonstrating a constant attachment and regard to him while, at the same time, being worthy of affection and regard themselves. There were few people like that. Michael Rosier-Henlin had certainly not been one of them. Draco was not above doing things for political partners that would benefit him as well, but they were badly mistaken if they thought that implied that he _liked_ them.

He was selfish, and he would use Dark spells that Harry would never consider, and he thought Harry's delicacy on matters political was almost too much to be borne. He was _not vates_, or anything like it. He was not the spoiled heir of the Malfoy line that he could have grown up to be, either, or Lucius's mindless puppet—the memory of the Imbolc ritual and the life he might have led without Harry pricked him then—but he was not the perfect, shining partner he knew many people thought should have stood at Harry's side.

He was someone who saw his own imperfections in the eyes of the world and could face them unflinchingly, pretending to correct them if it made sense to do so, but most of the time changing permanently only if they hurt someone he loved. And then he made the changes with speed and power. The rest of the time—well, Harry had once accused him of laziness, but Draco preferred to think of it as the law of conservation of effort. He didn't need to please those who disapproved of him so thoroughly they would never work with him, so why should he try?

Draco lifted his head, and gave a hard little smile that no one but him was there to see.

_I like myself, and don't care if I'm likeable. I don't plan to change right now. I may change in the future. No one can predict it. Harry is the only one who can demand it, and even he can't dictate its course. _

_I'm what I want to be and what I need to be for this phase of my life._

Draco rose to his feet, carefully shrinking the plaque with a spell and tucking it into his robe pocket. He needed to meet Harry at Silver-Mirror to discuss the catering for the celebration, and was already a few minutes late. He liked the idea of showing up now and letting Harry fuss over and at him.

_That's the way that I'm most different from my father, and even my mother. My mother planned for years in advance. My father makes plans on a smaller scale than that, but then he assumes that people will fall into place. I plan as I need to, in the moment and across years and in all the times in between. I can accept that change is necessary, and adapt to it when it comes. _

_If I'm not perfect now, I'll change until I am._

Draco lifted his head, challenging anyone who might watch him invisibly or from a distance in the way he moved, and Apparated home.


	106. Ave Atque Vale

The title of this chapter comes from a poem by the Roman poet Catullus, whose brother died as a soldier and was buried far from Rome; Catullus composed it on visiting his grave. The last line of the poem reads, "atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale" (And now forever, brother, hail and farewell).

**Chapter Eighty-Five: Ave Atque Vale**

Harry walked slowly along the shore.

Waves rushed up to his feet and lapped down again. They no longer looked silver, as they had in his madness, but merely gray. Harry halted and spent a moment staring east. On Midsummer Day, the sun would come up and stretch its rays over the waters, and for the first time in centuries, there would be no Potters to greet it, no possibility of such a greeting even if they simply chose not to come.

Harry sat down on the wet sand, ignoring the fact that it crusted his robes with heavy slime; that was what cleaning charms were for. He propped his knees up, looped his arms around them, leaned his chin on his right knee, and watched the sunrise. Now and then a flake of foam glinted from the spray, reminding him of unicorns, but no unicorns swam out of the morning to greet him. Harry would have refused the greeting if they had.

It was not unicorns he had come here to speak to.

"Parvati told me a bit about the wedding ritual," he said, "what you told her. I remember the tadpoles. I remember that Lily trained me and made me hide the training from you, yes, but I also remember them." He shut his eyes and sat with them shut, until the closing in his throat lessened and he was ready to continue.

"I loved you, and it was woven under the training, and would have existed without it. Lily couldn't have built a regard into me that wasn't already there. We were _twins_, Connor. You were always with me. I suppose other children learn to think of themselves as separate because there's always a gap of experience between them; they know their siblings know things they don't, or they can remember a time without their siblings, or they see their parents treat them differently. I can't ask Draco, since he doesn't have a brother. But I can't remember a time without you, and the things that you didn't know and I did—they weren't that _important_, they were always in service to purity and innocence. So I learned to value your wisdom more than mine, while also being sure I had to know what I did to protect you, and that the separation was equally inevitable and irrelevant.

"The love might have been forced at first, but if it remained that way, it would have died at the end of third year with Sirius, when I finally let the scales drop from my eyes. Instead, we wound apart from each other for a long time, and then began a slow journey back towards each other again. You accepted your new position with strength and with grace, and strove not to be a burden on me."

Harry opened his eyes, and watched the water washing to his feet. "No one else ever understood how _good_ that was of you, I don't think. Even I didn't at the time, because I didn't notice. And Snape and Draco think of it as—as redressing some sort of cosmic _balance_, as if, since I considered myself ordinary compared to you for twelve years, it was only right that you should think the same thing now.

"That's _stupid_, Connor. There isn't justice like that. If there were, Medusa Rosier-Henlin wouldn't have been raped, and Narcissa Malfoy would have lived, and Regulus wouldn't have endured years of suffering and lost his life at the end. What is that redress for? What crimes did they have to make up?" Harry shook his head wildly enough to send his hair whipping into his eyes. "No. I can't accept that. There's no one keeping a tally of all our actions and measuring out the grace we deserve and the punishment we merit. That's why the justice and mercy _we_ make are so important. They're the only kind we can actually depend on.

"No. You were you, and you managed to transform yourself because you thought you had to. And you were something that none of the others were to me, because the others pushed me to be more human or thought of me as a savior or were convinced I could do better, be more, exist on a higher plane. You showed me all the grace ordinary human life has. You don't _have_ to be a Lord-level wizard to matter. The same surname isn't the only way people connect. You don't have to be a perfect specimen of maturity and adulthood for someone to take you seriously.

"There were things about you that drove me mad—the way you constantly bickered with Draco, for instance." Harry closed his eyes, and sat until the memories of what Draco had told him about Voldemort's burrow, the way the Light had come to take Connor's soul away and what it showed him, had subsided into gentleness. Then he opened his eyes, and winced as the sun caught, glinting, on the edge of his glasses. "And without them, you wouldn't have been my brother, and I wouldn't have loved you nearly as much.

"You looked into the future, and saw what you would be giving up, when you died. I can't imagine it. To realize you could have everything you wanted, and lay your life down. Peter wanted to die because he thought he had nothing to lose, no one to miss him. Snape punishes himself for past sins. Draco wouldn't have thought of giving his life up unless he saw no way for me to survive; then he might have deemed it worthwhile, to spare my suffering with his own. I wasn't thinking clearly. I preferred your life to the suffering of everyone else, and refused to look closely at what I was doing.

"You saw _everything_, and knew what it would mean, and you still died."

Harry reached down, picked up a handful of wet sand, and spent a moment shaping it into a tiny tower that rose from the beach. The next wave rolled in and destroyed it.

"I could say I'm not worthy of such a gift," he said. "But that would still be hiding from what you did, whinging and punishing myself the way Snape does. I think he's finally learned better, now, but he spent years hiding from the world and sneering at it because he assumed everyone would sneer at _him_. His son or not, that's one trait of his I don't want to inherit.

"Draco would think it only as much as he deserves, especially since he didn't like you that much while you were alive. And—I love Draco, I do, but I'm not him, either. People don't _owe_ me anything. They can make the decision to give me gifts, but I don't somehow deserve them by virtue of my existence.

"Your perspective is the one I want to adopt, Connor, because you saw everything and you sacrificed it because you thought I could still do more good than would happen if you were alive and I were dead. I want that vision. I want that future you saw. And the best way, right now, is for me to live and work towards it. If something changes, if I can make more of a difference by pulling back and not engaging as much, say, I hope I have the sense to see it."

Harry pulled his glasses off. The rising sun had risen now, and its glory was all the world.

"I want to _see_. I want to know what is happening and what might happen, not just what happened and what will." Harry smiled a bit. "I remember Lily saying once that the saddest words in English are 'might have been.' If that's true, I think the gladdest words are 'might' and 'may.' You don't know if your dearest wish is going to come true, but you can hope until it happens."

He rose to his feet, put his glasses back on, and bowed his head, extending his hands to the sea. The sun rolled and glinted. The waves shone and sang.

"I'll honor your sacrifice," Harry said softly. "But I can't let it define my life. I can't mourn you forever. I can't sink into permanent depression because you're gone. I want to mingle your vision with my own, and let it become _part_ of me, rather than the whole.

"The recovery will be long, but I don't care how long it takes. It was for _this_ you died, Connor, for the sake of a world where healing is still possible. For that, take my blessing, my thanks, my hail—" Harry drew in a deep breath "—and my farewell. _Atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale."_

The waves rolled in without answering. The sun shone. The beach sand beneath Harry's feet crunched as he walked back towards his Apparition point.

It was a fair morning in June, and there was no need to hurry.


	107. Epilogue: In Memoriam

This is the last post of the Sacrifices Arc. I will write nothing further in the future of the story than this. (Incidentally, pay attention to the date at the top of this, or the content will make _no_ sense). At a certain point, you've got to let the characters go and live lives that you can't even imagine.

A hearty thanks to all the people who read and reviewed, and stuck with a story that turned out to be much more massive than I expected.

And last word to Draco.

**Epilogue: In Memoriam**

_June 5th, 1999_

_Dear Blaise:_

I'm a bit surprised to see you writing to me after so long, but beggars can't be choosers, can they? And you need someone to tell you what's happened in England, and whether it's safe for you to return.

Disregard nothing of this letter, Blaise, neither the content nor the tone. Harry has doubtless forgotten that you betrayed him, since he's had to live with so many and greater betrayals since then. I have not. When you return to England, tread softly, for you tread on my fangs.

Incidentally, as to the question that you included in your letter, I have no idea if the youngest Weasley is married, joined, engaged, single, or living with three monkeys and a hippocampus. Do you really think she matters to me?

Harry is asleep in bed behind me. Truly, truly asleep, without nightmares haunting him for once. He breathes deeply, which is why I can tell. Well, he should. We celebrated in many ways for my nineteenth birthday, including some that I'm certain you don't want to hear about.

Made it to nineteen, Blaise, in spite of the best efforts of you and many other people. This year has been mad. I once thought the largest part of our danger and excitement had passed with Voldemort, and, while I certainly couldn't predict what Harry and I would do from now on, we would be able to control it better when it happened.

I should learn not to make such statements where fate can hear me.

Harry just had to visit the Hebridean Black sanctuary and see the hatchlings the hybrid eggs from their British Red-Gold had produced, of course. I suspect you've heard about that. The Dragon-Keepers made sure every wizarding newspaper in Europe carried articles about it; "the blood of fire flowing in the world again" or something similar was how they titled it.

What you might not have heard was that Harry upset a dragon somehow—they don't know the vates so much as recognize him when they want to—and took a Hebridean Black's tail to the chest. I managed to hit him from the side and bear him down so that he missed some of the impact, but it happened anyway. He never came so close to dying, not even when he encountered a certain poison during the war with Voldemort. It was two weeks before he could walk again.

Harry being Harry, this did not disconcert him, and he refused to listen to my suggestions that the dragon be put down.

Then there was the journey to Africa and India, where we went to see about one of the magical species Harry's presence is loosening the webs on. I don't even what to mention it, Blaise. Don't talk to me about karkadanns and baobab trees.

We came back, and Harry happened to be in the Ministry on the day that assassins decided to go after Minister Apollonis. (I suppose you heard about the election, even in your little hiding place in France?) That's Harry's kind of luck. He can't be normal, and neither were the assassins; they had something with them like the Stone under the Ministry or the Potter Maze, an artifact from another world, and its specialty was undoing barriers of all kinds, including wards and Shield Charms. Including Harry's wards and Shield Charms. There was a lot of shouting, and a bit of possession, and some running around. An Order of Merlin, First Class, was appropriate for me when the day was done and the Minister still alive.

Did I mention that, Blaise? Cause trouble even just for me, not for Harry, and you're fighting someone whom half the British wizarding world considers a hero and is more than happy to aid. And that's not counting my political contacts, or the business ones that I've made by inventing new spells and selling them to the international community. They tell me that my new wards, modeled on house elf magic, will revolutionize security in the next few years. I don't care to know all the details all the time, of course. That's what the people I hire are for. But I know the money.

I've established some contacts of my own, for another business, in Peru. Lovely place, Peru. Of course, when the Dark Lady Elena Dead-eyes kidnapped me and put me in her labyrinth, I didn't think it was all that lovely, but I wasn't seeing that much of it. I couldn't maintain a prejudice against the country itself when Harry came after me, blinded Elena—he has a penchant for blinding Dark Ladies—rescued me, and found an abducted child named Clara whom the Potter estates apparently have decided is perfect for them and needs to be raised as the Potter magical and legal heir. So Peru is quite beautiful, and Elena was quite trounced, and Harry's life—he Floos back and forth from Peru to give Clara lessons and to smooth out details with her birth family—is quite busy, and I am quite rich.

We've completed the joining rituals, as of little more than a month ago, on Walpurgis Night. I am fully Harry's now, and he is mine, joined partner in everyone's eyes. I'm sure you will be pleased to hear that the Ministers of Austria, France, Spain, and Portugal—the other countries in what they're calling the Hand of Wizardry—continue to find Harry pleasing and to work with him on wizard-Muggle relations. They're slowly infusing Muggle popular culture with the acceptance of magic where they can, and have commissioned Professor Snape to make potions that can enable Muggles to see magic and may be quietly distributed to interesting and willing subjects.

Tomorrow we go to Senegal. Reports of strange unicorns are rampant there, and Harry wants to investigate them, but he also wanted to wait until after my birthday.

And I will never send this letter, Blaise, because I find it says rather too much of things I don't want to show to anyone else after all. I would much prefer to sit back, and watch Harry sleep, and avoid thinking about Senegal until tomorrow. I'll write you another letter, don't worry.

By all the fates that gave him to me, Harry is beautiful. I am only glad that he was good enough to deserve me.

Now to blow out the candles and join him.

_In conclusion,_

_Draco Lucius Black Malfoy._

_**The End.**_

I started this story for many reasons—to explore the ideas, to write about the psychology of a certain kind of abuse, to try and provide fuller and more rounded characterization than stories like this usually get—but the biggest was to see if I could do it.

And the answer is: Yes, I could. Close on three million words, in close on a year and four months, and I did it.

Thank you, once again, for following this, reviewing, offering constructive criticism, and letting me know that the story and its characters mattered to other people. I can never regret my decision to post this, even when it felt as if it bled me dry of all my emotions. I may write more fanfiction someday, even fanfiction in this universe, but now the Sacrifices Arc is ended, and I'm moving back to original fiction.

Farewell wherever you fare!

_Lightning._


End file.
